Mark Twain's sketches, new and old now first published in complete form |
How the Author was
Sold in Newark. |
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 | Mark Twain's sketches, new and old |  |
How the Author was
Sold in Newark.
IT is seldom pieasant to tell
on one's self, but sometimes
it is a sort of relief to a
man to make a confession. I
wish to unburden my mind now, and
yet I almost believe that I am moved to
do it more because I long to bring censure
upon another man than because I
desire to pour balm upon my wounded
heart. (I don't know what balm is, but I
believe it is the correct expression to use
in this connection—never having seen
any balm.) You may remember that I
lectured in Newark lately for the young
gentlemen of the — Society? I did
at any rate. During the afternoon of that
day I was talking with one of the young
gentlemen just referred to, and he said he
had an uncle who, from some cause or
other, seemed to have grown permanently bereft of all emotion. And with
tears in his eyes, this young man said, “Oh, if I could only see him laugh
never withstand distress.
I said: “Bring him to my lecture. I'll start him for you.”
“Oh, if you could but do it! If you could but do it, all our family would
bless you for evermore—for he is so very dear to us. Oh, my benefactor, can
you make him laugh? can you bring soothing tears to those parched orbs?”
I was profoundly moved. I said: “My son, bring the old party round. I
have got some jokes in that lecture that will make him laugh if there is any laugh
in him; and if they miss fire, I have got some others that will make him cry or
kill him, one or the other.” Then the young man blessed me, and wept on my
neck, and went after his uncle. He placed him in full view, in the second row
of benches that night, and I began on him. I tried him with mild jokes, then
with severe ones; I dosed him with bad jokes and riddled him with good ones;
I fired old stale jokes into him, and peppered him fore and aft with red-hot new
ones; I warmed up to my work, and assaulted him on the right and left, in
front and behind; I fumed and sweated and charged and ranted till I was hoarse
and sick, and frantic and furious; but I never moved him once—I never started
a smile or a tear! Never a ghost of a smile, and never a suspicion of moisture!
I was astounded. I closed the lecture at last with one despairing shriek—with
one wild burst of humor, and hurled a joke of supernatural atrocity full at him!
Then I sat down bewildered and exhausted.
The president of the society came up and bathed my head with cold water,
and said: “What made you carry on so towards the last?”
I said: “I was trying to make that confounded old fool laugh, in the second
row.”
And he said: “Well, you were wasting your time, because he is deaf and
dumb, and as blind as a badger!”
Now, was that any way for that old man's nephew to impose on a stranger
and orphan like me? I ask you as a man and brother, if that was any way for
him to do?
| Mark Twain's sketches, new and old | |