He had not had my experience, and could not do that.
He came on the platform, held his manuscript down,
and began with a beautiful piece of oratory.
He spoke something like this:
“When a lonely human being, a pigmy in the midst
of the architecture of nature, stands solitary on
those icy waters and looks abroad to the horizon and
sees mighty castles and temples of eternal ice raising
up their pinnacles tipped by the pencil of the departing
sun—”
Here a man came across the platform and touched him
on the shoulder, and said: “One minute.”
And then to the audience:
“Is Mrs. John Smith in the house? Her
husband has slipped on the ice and broken his leg.”
And you could see the Mrs. John Smiths get up everywhere
and drift out of the house, and it made great gaps
everywhere. Then Doctor Hayes began again:
“When a lonely man, a pigmy in the architecture—”
The janitor came in again and shouted: “It
is not Mrs. John Smith! It is Mrs. John Jones!”
Then all the Mrs. Jones got up and left. Once
more the speaker started, and was in the midst of
the sentence when he was interrupted again, and the
result was that the lecture was not delivered.
But the lecturer interviewed the janitor afterward
in a private room, and of the fragments of the janitor
they took “twelve basketsful.”
Now, I don’t want to sit down just in this way.
I have been talking with so much levity that I have
said no serious thing, and you are really no better
or wiser, although Robert Buchanan has suggested that
I am a person who deals in wisdom. I have said
nothing which would make you better than when you
came here.
I should be sorry to sit down without having said
one serious word which you can carry home and relate
to your children and the old people who are not able
to get away.
And this is just a little maxim which has saved me
from many a difficulty and many a disaster, and in
times of tribulation and uncertainty has come to my
rescue, as it shall to yours if you observe it as I
do day and night.
I always use it in an emergency, and you can take
it home as a legacy from me, and it is “When
in doubt, tell the truth.”
The news of Mr. Clemens’s
arrival in England in June, 1907, was announced
in the papers with big headlines. Immediately
following the announcement was the news—also
with big headlines—that the Ascot
Gold Cup had been stolen the same day.
The combination, mark twain arrives-Ascot
cup stolen, amused the public.
The Lord Mayor of London gave a banquet at the
Mansion House in honor of Mr. Clemens.
I do assure you that I am not so dishonest as I look.
I have been so busy trying to rehabilitate my honor
about that Ascot Cup that I have had no time to prepare
a speech.
I was not so honest in former days as I am now, but
I have always been reasonably honest. Well,
you know how a man is influenced by his surroundings.
Once upon a time I went to a public meeting where
the oratory of a charitable worker so worked on my
feelings that, in common with others, I would have
dropped something substantial in the hat—if
it had come round at that moment.
