University of Virginia Library

FIRST INTERVIEW WITH ARTEMUS WARD.

[ILLUSTRATION] [Description: 503EAF. Page 282. In-line image; opening image from the story "First Interview With Artemus Ward." The image depicts Twain and Ward sitting at a table in a restaurant talking. In the background a man dining alone and reading a newspaper listens in to the conversation.]

I HAD never seen him before. He brought letters of introduction from mutual
friends in San Francisco, and by invitation I breakfasted with him. It was
almost religion, there in the silver mines, to precede such a meal with whiskey
cocktails. Artemus, with the true cosmopolitan instinct, always deferred to the
customs of the country he was in, and so he ordered three of those abominations.
Hingston was present. I said I would rather not drink a whiskey cocktail. I
said it would go right to my head, and confuse me so that I would be in a helpless
tangle in ten minutes. I did not want to act like a lunatic before strangers. But

Artemus gently insisted, and I drank the treasonable mixture under protest, and
felt all the time that I was doing a thing I might be sorry for. In a minute or two
I began to imagine that my ideas were clouded. I waited in great anxiety for the
conversation to open, with a sort of vague hope that my understanding would prove
clear, after all, and my misgivings groundless.

Artemus dropped an unimportant remark or two, and then assumed a look of
superhuman earnestness, and made the following astounding speech. He said:—

“Now there is one thing I ought to ask you about before I forget it. You have
been here in Silverland—here in Nevada—two or three years, and, of course, your
position on the daily press has made it necessary for you to go down in the mines
and examine them carefully in detail, and therefore you know all about the silver-mining
business. Now, what I want to get at is—is, well, the way the deposits of
ore are made, you know. For instance. Now, as I understand it, the vein which
contains the silver is sandwiched in between casings of granite, and runs along the
ground, and sticks up like a curb-stone. Well, take a vein forty feet thick, for
example, or eighty, for that matter, or even a hundred—say you go down on it with
a shaft, straight down, you know, or with what you call `incline,' maybe you go
down five hundred feet, or maybe you don't go down but two hundred—any way
you go down, and all the time this vein grows narrower, when the casings come
nearer or approach each other, you may say—that is, when they do approach, which
of course they do not always do, particularly in cases where the nature of the
formation is such that they stand apart wider than they otherwise would, and which
geology has failed to account for, although everything in that science goes to prove
that, all things being equal, it would if it did not, or would not certainly if it did,
and then of course they are. Do not you think it is?”

I said to myself:—

“Now I just knew how it would be—that whiskey cocktail has done the business
for me; I don't understand any more than a clam.”

And then I said aloud—

“I—I—that is—if you don't mind, would you—would you say that over again?
I ought”—

“Oh, certainly, certainly! You see I am very unfamiliar with the subject, and
perhaps I don't present my case clearly, but I”—

“No, no—no, no—you state it plain enough, but that cocktail has muddled me
a little. But I will—no, I do understand for that matter; but I would get the
hang of it all the better if you went over it again—and I'll pay better attention this
time.”

He said, “Why, what I was after was this.”

[Here he became even more fearfully impressive than ever, and emphasized each
particular point by checking it off on his finger ends.]

“This vein, or lode, or ledge, or whatever you call it, runs along between two
layers of granite, just the same as if it were a sandwich. Very well. Now, suppose
you go down on that, say a thousand feet, or maybe twelve hundred (it don't really
matter), before you drift, and then you start your drifts, some of them across the
ledge, and others along the length of it, where the sulphurets—I believe they call
them sulphurets, though why they should, considering that, so far as I can see, the
main dependence of a miner does not so lie, as some suppose, but in which it cannot
be successfully maintained, wherein the same should not continue, while part
and parcel of the same ore not committed to either in the sense referred to, whereas,
under different circumstances, the most inexperienced among us could not detect
it if it were, or might overlook it if it did, or scorn the very idea of such a thing,
even though it were palpably demonstrated as such. Am I not right?”

I said, sorrowfully—“I feel ashamed of myself, Mr. Ward. I know I ought to
understand you perfectly well, but you see that treacherous whiskey cocktail has
got into my head, and now I cannot understand even the simplest proposition. I
told you how it would be.”

“Oh, don't mind it, don't mind it; the fault was my own, no doubt—though I
did think it clear enough for”—

“Don't say a word. Clear! Why, you stated it as clear as the sun to anybody
but an abject idiot; but it's that confounded cocktail that has played the mischief.”

“No; now don't say that. I'll begin it all over again, and”—

“Don't now—for goodness sake, don't do anything of the kind, because I tell
you my head is in such a condition that I don't believe I could understand the
most trifling question a man could ask me.”

“Now, don't you be afraid. I'll put it so plain this time that you can't help but
get the hang of it. We will begin at the very beginning.” [Leaning far across the

table, with determined impressiveness wrought upon his every feature, and fingers
prepared to keep tally of each point as enumerated; and I, leaning forward with
painful interest, resolved to comprehend or perish.] “You know the vein, the
ledge, the thing that contains the metal, whereby it constitutes the medium between
all other forces, whether of present or remote agencies, so brought to bear in favor
of the former against the latter, or the latter against the former or all, or both, or
compromising the relative differences existing within the radius whence culminate
the several degrees of similarity to which”—

I said—“Oh, hang my wooden head, it ain't any use!—it ain't any use to try—
I can't understand anything. The plainer you get it the more I can't get the hang
of it.”

I heard a suspicious noise behind me, and turned in time to see Hingston
dodging behind a newspaper, and quaking with a gentle ecstasy of laughter. I
looked at Ward again, and he had thrown off his dread solemnity and was laughing
also. Then I saw that I had been sold—that I had been made the victim of a
swindle in the way of a string of plausibly worded sentences that didn't mean anything
under the sun. Artemus Ward was one of the best fellows in the world, and
one of the most companionable. It has been said that he was not fluent in conversation,
but, with the above experience in my mind, I differ.