not begun to bud--I was an obscurity; but you had been adding to your
fine Civil War record; you had just come back from your brilliant
Indian campaign in the Far West, and had been rewarded with a
brigadier-generalship in the regular army, and everybody was talking
about you and praising you. If you had met me, you wouldn't be able to
remember it now--unless some unusual circumstance of the meeting had
burnt it into your memory. It is forty years ago, and people don't
remember nobodies over a stretch of time like that."
I didn't wish to continue the conversation along that line, so I changed
the subject. I could have proven to him, without any trouble, that we
did meet in Washington in 1867, but I thought it might embarrass one or
the other of us, so I didn't do it. I remember the incident very well.
This was the way of it:
I had just come back from the Quaker City Excursion, and had made a
contract with Bliss of Hartford to write "The Innocents Abroad." I was
out of money, and I went down to Washington to see if I could earn
enough there to keep me in bread and butter while I should write the
book. I came across William Clinton, brother of the astronomer, and
together we invented a scheme for our mutual sustenance; we became the
fathers and originators of what is a common feature in the newspaper
world now--the syndicate. We became the old original first Newspaper
Syndicate on the planet; it was on a small scale, but that is usual with
untried new enterprises. We had twelve journals on our list; they were
all weeklies, all obscure and poor, and all scattered far away among the
back settlements. It was a proud thing for those little newspapers to
have a Washington correspondence, and a fortunate thing for us that they
felt in that way about it. Each of the twelve took two letters a week
from us, at a dollar per letter; each of us wrote one letter per week
and sent off six duplicates of it to these benefactors, thus acquiring
twenty-four dollars a week to live on--which was all we needed, in our
cheap and humble quarters.
Clinton was one of the dearest and loveliest human beings I have ever
known, and we led a charmed existence together, in a contentment which
knew no bounds. Clinton was refined by nature and breeding; he was a
gentleman by nature and breeding; he was highly educated; he was of a
beautiful spirit; he was pure in heart and speech. He was a Scotchman,
and a Presbyterian; a Presbyterian of the old and genuine school, being
honest and sincere in his religion, and loving it, and finding serenity
and peace in it. He hadn't a vice--unless a large and grateful sympathy
with Scotch whiskey may be called by that name. I didn't regard it as a
vice, because he was a Scotchman, and Scotch whiskey to a Scotchman is
as innocent as milk is to the rest of the human race. In Clinton's case
it was a virtue, and not an economical one. Twenty-four dollars a week
would really have been riches to us if we hadn't had to support that
jug; because of the jug we were always sailing pretty close to the wind,
and any tardiness in the arrival of any part of our income was sure to
cause us some inconvenience.
I remember a time when a shortage occurred; we had to have three
dollars, and we had to have it before the close of the day. I don't know
now how we happened to want all that money at one time; I only know we
had to have it. Clinton told me to go out and find it--and he said he
would also go out and see what he could do. He didn't seem to have any
doubt that we would succeed, but I knew that that was his religion
working in him; I hadn't the same confidence; I hadn't any idea where to
turn to raise all that bullion, and I said so. I think he was ashamed of
me, privately, because of my weak faith. He told me to give myself no
uneasiness, no concern; and said in a simple, confident, and
unquestioning way, "the Lord will provide." I saw that he fully believed
the Lord would provide, but it seemed to me that if he had had my
experience--
But never mind that; before he was done with me his strong faith had had
its influence, and I went forth from the place almost convinced that the
Lord really would provide.
I wandered around the streets for an hour, trying to think up some way
to get that money, but nothing suggested itself. At last I lounged into
the big lobby of the Ebbitt House, which was then a new hotel, and sat
down. Presently a dog came loafing along. He paused, glanced up at me
and said, with his eyes, "Are you friendly?" I answered, with my eyes,
that I was. He gave his tail a grateful little wag and came forward and
rested his jaw on my knee and lifted his brown eyes to my face in a
winningly affectionate way. He was a lovely creature--as beautiful as a
girl, and he was made all of silk and velvet. I stroked his smooth brown
head and fondled his drooping ears, and we were a pair of lovers right
away. Pretty soon Brigadier-General Miles, the hero of the land, came
strolling by in his blue and gold splendors, with everybody's admiring
gaze upon him. He saw the dog and stopped, and there was a light in his
eye which showed that he had a warm place in his heart for dogs like
this gracious creature; then he came forward and patted the dog and
said,
"He is very fine--he is a wonder; would you sell him?"
I was greatly moved; it seemed a marvellous thing to me, the way
Clinton's prediction had come true. I said,
"Yes."
The General said,
"What do you ask for him?"
"Three dollars."
The General was manifestly surprised. He said,
"Three dollars? Only three dollars? Why, that dog is a most uncommon
dog; he can't possibly be worth leas than fifty. If he were mine, I
wouldn't take a hundred for him. I'm afraid you are not aware of his
value. Reconsider your price if you like, I don't wish to wrong you."
But if he had known me he would have known that I was no more capable of
wronging him than he was of wronging me. I responded with the same quiet
decision as before,
"No--three dollars. That is his price."
"Very well, since you insist upon it," said the General, and he gave me
three dollars and led the dog away, and disappeared up-stairs.
In about ten minutes a gentle-faced middle-aged gentleman came along,
and began to look around here and there and under tables and everywhere,
and I said to him,
"Is it a dog you are looking for?"
His face was sad, before, and troubled; but it lit up gladly now, and he
answered,
"Yes--have you seen him?"
"Yes," I said, "he was here a minute ago, and I saw him follow a
gentleman away. I think I could find him for you if you would like me to
try."
I have seldom seen a person look so grateful--and there was gratitude in
his voice, too, when he conceded that he would like me to try. I said I
would do it with great pleasure, but that as it might take a little time
I hoped he would not mind paying me something for my trouble. He said he
would do it most gladly--repeating that phrase "most gladly"--and asked
me how much. I said--
"Three dollars."
He looked surprised, and said,
"Dear me, it is nothing! I will pay you ten, quite willingly."
But I said,
"No, three is the price"--and I started for the stairs without waiting
for any further argument, for Clinton had said that that was the amount
that the Lord would provide, and it seemed to me that it would be
sacrilegious to take a penny more than was promised.
I got the number of the General's room from the office-clerk, as I
passed by his wicket, and when I reached the room I found the General
there caressing his dog, and quite happy. I said,
"I am sorry, but I have to take the dog again."
He seemed very much surprised, and said,
"Take him again? Why, he is my dog; you sold him to me, and at your own
price."
"Yes," I said, "it is true--but I have to have him, because the man
wants him again."
"What man?"
"The man that owns him; he wasn't my dog."
The General looked even more surprised than before, and for a moment he
couldn't seem to find his voice; then he said,
"Do you mean to tell me that you were selling another man's dog--and
knew it?"
"Yes, I knew it wasn't my dog."
"Then why did you sell him?"
I said,
"Well, that is a curious question to ask. I sold him because you wanted
him. You offered to buy the dog; you can't deny that I was not anxious
to sell him--I had not even thought of selling him, but it seemed to me
that if it could be any accommodation to you--"
He broke me off in the middle, and said,
"_Accommodation_ to me? It is the most extraordinary spirit of
accommodation I have ever heard of--the idea of your selling a dog that
didn't belong to you--"
I broke him off there, and said,
"There is no relevancy about this kind of argument; you said yourself
that the dog was probably worth a hundred dollars, I only asked you
three; was there anything unfair about that? You offered to pay more,
you know you did. I only asked you three; you can't deny it."
"Oh, what in the world has that to do with it! The crux of the matter is
that you didn't own the dog--can't you see that? You seem to think that
there is no impropriety in selling property that isn't yours provided
you sell it cheap. Now, then--"
I said,
"Please don't argue about it any more. You can't get around the fact
that the price was perfectly fair, perfectly reasonable--considering
that I didn't own the dog--and so arguing about it is only a waste of
words. I have to have him back again because the man wants him; don't
you see that I haven't any choice in the matter? Put yourself in my
place. Suppose you had sold a dog that didn't belong to you; suppose
you--"
"Oh," he said, "don't muddle my brains any more with your idiotic
reasonings! Take him along, and give me a rest."
So I paid back the three dollars and led the dog down-stairs and passed
him over to his owner, and collected three for my trouble.
I went away then with a good conscience, because I had acted honorably;
I never could have used the three that I sold the dog for, because it
was not rightly my own, but the three I got for restoring him to his
rightful owner was righteously and properly mine, because I had earned
it. That man might never have gotten that dog back at all, if it hadn't
been for me. My principles have remained to this day what they were
then. I was always honest; I know I can never be otherwise. It is as I
said in the beginning--I was never able to persuade myself to use money
which I had acquired in questionable ways.
Now, then, that is the tale. Some of it is true.
MARK TWAIN.
End of Project Gutenberg's Chapters from My Autobiography, by Mark Twain