University of Virginia Library

A SELF-MADE MAN.

MARK TWAIN.

Samuel McFadden was a watchman in a bank. He was poor, but
honest, and his life was without reproach. The trouble with him was that
he felt he was not appreciated.

His salary was only four dollars a week, and when he asked to have it
raised, the president, cashier, and the board of directors glared at him
through their spectacles, and frowned on him, and told him to go out and
stop his insolence, when he knew business was dull, and the bank could not
meet its expenses now, let alone lavishing one dollar on such a miserable
worm as Samuel McFadden.

And then Samuel McFadden felt depressed, sad, and the haughty scorn
of the president and cashier cut him to the soul.

He would often go to the side yard, and bow his venerable twenty-four
inch head, and weep gallons and gallons of tears over his insignificance, and
pray that he might be made worthy of the cashier's and president's polite
attention.

One night a happy thought struck him; a gleam of light burst upon him,
and gazing down the dim vista of years with his eyes all blinded with joyous
tears, he saw himself rich and respected.

So Samuel McFadden fooled around and got a jimmy, a monkey-wrench,
a cross-cut saw, a cold chisel, and about a ton of gunpowder and nitro-glycerine,
and those things. Then, in the dead of night, he went to
the fire-proof safe, and after working at it for a while, burst the door and
brick into an eternal smash, with such a perfect success that there was not
enough of that safe left to make a carpet tack.

Mr. McFadden then proceeded to load up with coupons, greenbacks,
currency and specie, and to nail all the odd change that was lying anywhere,
so that he pranced out of the bank with over a million dollars on him. Then
he retired to an unassuming residence out of town, and then sent word to
the detectives where he was.

A detective called on him next day with a soothing note from the
cashier. McFadden treated it with lofty scorn.

Detectives called on him every day with humble notes from the president,
cashier, and board of directors.

At last the bank officers got up a magnificent private supper, to which
McFadden was invited.

He came, and as the bank officers bowed down to the dust before him,
he pondered well over the bitter past, and his soul was filled with exultation.

Before he drove away in his carriage that night it was all fixed that
McFadden was to keep half a million of that money, and to be unmolested
if he returned the other half.

He fulfilled his contract like an honest man, but refused, with haughty
disdain, the offer of the cashier to marry his daughter.

Mac is now honored and respected. He moves in the best society, he
browses around in purple and fine linen, and other good clothes, and enjoys
himself first rate. And often now he takes his infant son on his knee, and

[ILLUSTRATION]

Miniature Type (The New York Tribune).

[Description: 497EAF. Page 031. Image of multiple headlines, some relating to Twain, from The New York Tribune.]

tells him of his early life, and instills holy principles into the child's mind,
and shows him how, by industry and perseverance, and frugality, and nitro-glycerine,
and monkey wrenches, and cross-cut saws, and familiarity with
the detective system, even the poor may rise to affluence and responsibility.