ADDRESS MADE ON THE EVENING OF APRIL 19, 1906
Mr. Clemens had been asked to address the association by Gen.
Frederick D. Grant, president. He was offered a fee of $1,000,
but refused it, saying:
“I shall be glad to do it, but I must stipulate that you keep
the $1,000, and add it to the Memorial Fund as my contribution
to erect a monument in New York to the memory of the man who
applied steam to navigation.”
At this meeting Mr. Clemens made this formal announcement from
the platform:
“This is my last appearance on the paid platform. I shall not
retire from the gratis platform until I am buried, and courtesy
will compel me to keep still and not disturb the others. Now,
since I must, I shall say good-bye. I see many faces in this
audience well known to me. They are all my friends, and I feel
that those I don’t know are my friends, too. I wish to
consider that you represent the nation, and that in saying
good-bye to you I am saying good-bye to the nation. In the
great name of humanity, let me say this final word: I offer an
appeal in behalf of that vast, pathetic multitude of fathers,
mothers, and helpless little children. They were sheltered and
happy two days ago. Now they are wandering, forlorn, hopeless,
and homeless, the victims of a great disaster. So I beg of
you, I beg of you, to open your hearts and open your purses and
remember San Francisco, the smitten city.”
I wish to deliver a historical address. I’ve been studying the history of—-er—a—let me see—a [then he stopped in confusion, and walked over to Gen. Fred D. Grant, who sat at the head of the platform. He leaned over in a whisper, and then returned to the front of the stage and continued]. Oh yes! I’ve been studying Robert Fulton. I’ve been studying a biographical sketch of Robert Fulton, the inventor of—er—a—let’s see—ah yes, the inventor of the electric telegraph and the Morse sewing—machine. Also, I understand he invented the air—diria—pshaw! I have it at last—the dirigible balloon. Yes, the dirigible—but it is a difficult word, and I don’t see why anybody should marry a couple of words like that when they don’t want to be married at all and are likely to quarrel with each other all the time. I should put that couple of words under the ban of the United States Supreme Court, under its decision of a few days ago, and take ’em out and drown ’em.
I used to know Fulton. It used to do me good to see him dashing through the town on a wild broncho.
And Fulton was born in—-er—a—Well, it doesn’t make much difference where he was born, does it? I remember a man who came to interview me once, to get a sketch of my life. I consulted with a friend—a practical man—before he came, to know how I should treat him.
“Whenever you give the interviewer a fact,” he said, “give him another fact that will contradict it. Then he’ll go away with a jumble that he can’t use at all. Be gentle, be sweet, smile like an idiot—just be natural.” That’s what my friend told me to do, and I did it.
“Where were you born?” asked the interviewer.
“Well-er-a,” I began, “I was born in Alabama, or Alaska, or the Sandwich Islands; I don’t know where, but right around there somewhere. And you had better put it down before you forget it.”
“But you weren’t born in all those places,” he said.
“Well, I’ve offered you three places. Take your choice. They’re all at the same price.”
“How old are you?” he asked.
“I shall be nineteen in June,” I said.
“Why, there’s such a discrepancy between your age and your looks,” he said.
“Oh, that’s nothing,” I said, “I was born discrepantly.”
Then we got to talking about my brother Samuel, and he told me my explanations were confusing.
“I suppose he is dead,” I said. “Some said that he was dead and some said that he wasn’t.”
“Did you bury him without knowing whether he was dead or not?” asked the reporter.
“There was a mystery,” said I. “We were twins, and one day when we were two weeks old—that is, he was one week old, and I was one week old—we got mixed up in the bath-tub, and one of us drowned. We never could tell which. One of us had a strawberry birthmark on the back of his hand. There it is on my hand. This is the one that was drowned. There’s no doubt about it.
“Where’s the mystery?” he said.
“Why, don’t you see how stupid it was to bury the wrong twin?” I answered. I didn’t explain it any more because he said the explanation confused him. To me it is perfectly plain.
But, to get back to Fulton. I’m going along like an old man I used to know who used to start to tell a story about his grandfather. He had an awfully retentive memory, and he never finished the story, because he switched off into something else. He used to tell about how his grandfather one day went into a pasture, where there was a ram. The old man dropped a silver dime in the grass, and stooped over to pick it up. The ram was observing him, and took the old man’s action as an invitation.
Just as he was going to finish about the ram this friend of mine would recall that his grandfather had a niece who had a glass eye. She used to loan that glass eye to another lady friend, who used it when she received company. The eye didn’t fit the friend’s face, and it was loose. And whenever she winked it would turn over.
Then he got on the subject of accidents, and he would tell a story about how he believed accidents never happened.
“There was an Irishman coming down a ladder with a hod of bricks,” he said, “and a Dutchman was standing on the ground below. The Irishman fell on the Dutchman and killed him. Accident? Never! If the Dutchman hadn’t been there the Irishman would have been killed. Why didn’t the Irishman fall on a dog which was next to the Dutchman? Because the dog would have seen him coming.”
Then he’d get off from the Dutchman to an uncle named Reginald Wilson. Reginald went into a carpet factory one day, and got twisted into the machinery’s belt. He went excursioning around the factory until he was properly distributed and was woven into sixty-nine yards of the best three-ply carpet. His wife bought the carpet, and then she erected a monument to his memory. It read:
Sacred to the memory
of
sixty-nine yards of the best three-ply carpet
containing the mortal remainders of
REGINALD WILSON
Go thou and do likewise
And so on he would ramble about telling the story of his grandfather until we never were told whether he found the ten-cent piece or whether something else happened.
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