by Mark Twain
“Well, well, well, this is a surprise. Once or twice I’ve seen your own name coupled with the nickname, but it never occurred to me that you could be the Henry Adams referred to. Why, it isn’t six months since you were clerking away for Blake Hopkins in Frisco on a salary, and sitting up nights on an extra allowance, helping me arrange and verify the Gould and Curry Extension papers and statistics. The idea of your being in London, and a vast millionaire, and a colossal celebrity! Why, it’s the Arabian Nights come again. Man, I can’t take it in at all; can’t realize it; give me time to settle the whirl in my head.”
“The fact is, Lloyd, you are no worse off than I am. I can’t realize it myself.”
“Dear me, it is stunning, now isn’t it? Why, it’s just three months today since we went to the Miners’ restaurant—”
“No; the What Cheer.”
“Right, it was the What Cheer; went there at two in the morning, and had a chop and coffee after a hard six-hours grind over those Extension papers, and I tried to persuade you to come to London with me, and offered to get leave of absence for you and pay all your expenses, and give you something over if I succeeded in making the sale; and you would not listen to me, said I wouldn’t succeed, and you couldn’t afford to lose the run of business and be no end of time getting the hang of things again when you got back home. And yet here you are. How odd it all is! How did you happen to come, and whatever did give you this incredible start?”
“Oh, just an accident. It’s a long story—a romance, a body may say. I’ll tell you all about it, but not now.”
“When?”
“The end of this month.”
“That’s more than a fortnight yet. It’s too much of a strain on a person’s curiosity. Make it a week.”
“I can’t. You’ll know why, by and by. But how’s the trade getting along?”
His cheerfulness vanished like a breath, and he said with a sigh:
“You were a true prophet, Hal, a true prophet. I wish I hadn’t come. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“But you must. You must come and stop with me to-night, when we leave here, and tell me all about it.”
“Oh, may I? Are you in earnest?” and the water showed in his eyes.
“Yes; I want to hear the whole story, every word.”
“I’m so grateful! Just to find a human interest once more, in some voice and in some eye, in me and affairs of mine, after what I’ve been through here—lord! I could go down on my knees for it!”
He gripped my hand hard, and braced up, and was all right and lively after that for the dinner—which didn’t come off. No; the usual thing happened, the thing that is always happening under the vicious and aggravating English system—the matter of precedence couldn’t be settled, and so there was no dinner. Englishmen always eat dinner before they go out to dinner, because they know the risks they are running; but nobody ever warns the stranger, and so he walks placidly into the trap. Of course, nobody was hurt this time, because we had all been to dinner, none of us being novices excepting Hastings, and he having been informed by the minister at the time that he invited him that in deference to the English custom he had not provided any dinner. Everybody took a lady and processioned down to the dining-room because it is usual to go through the motions; but there the dispute began. The Duke of Shoreditch wanted to take precedence, and sit at the head of the table, holding that he outranked a minister who represented merely a nation and not a monarch; but I stood for my rights, and refused to yield. In the gossip column I ranked all dukes not royal, and said so, and claimed precedence of this one. It couldn’t be settled, of course, struggle as we might and did, he finally (and injudiciously) trying to play birth and antiquity, and I “seeing” his Conqueror and “raising” him with Adam, whose direct posterity I was, as shown by my name, while he was of a collateral branch, as shown by his, and by his recent Norman origin; so we all processioned back to the drawing-room again and had a perpendicular lunch—plate of sardines and a strawberry, and you group yourself and stand up and eat it. Here the religion of precedence is not so strenuous; the two persons of highest rank chuck up a shilling, the one that wins has first go at his strawberry, and the loser gets the shilling. The next two chuck up, then the next two, and so on. After refreshment, tables were brought, and we all played cribbage, sixpence a game. The English never play any game for amusement. If they can’t make something or lose something—they don’t care which—they won’t play.
We had a lovely time; certainly two of us had, Miss Langham and I. I was so bewitched with her that I couldn’t count my hands if they went above a double sequence; and when I struck home I never discovered it, and started up the outside row again, and would have lost the game every time, only the girl did the same, she being in just my condition, you see; and consequently neither of us ever got out, or cared to wonder why we didn’t; we only just knew we were happy, and didn’t wish to know anything else, and didn’t want to be interrupted. And I told her—I did, indeed—told her I loved her; and she—well, she blushed till her hair turned red, but she liked it; she said she did. Oh, there was never such an evening! Every time I pegged I put on a postscript; every time she pegged she acknowledged receipt of it, counting the hands the same. Why, I couldn’t even say “Two for his heels” without adding “My, how sweet you do look!” and she would say, “Fifteen two, fifteen four, fifteen six, and a pair are eight, and eight are sixteen—do you think so?”—peeping out aslant from under her lashes, you know, so sweet and cunning. Oh, it was just too-too!
Well, I was perfectly honest and square with her; told her I hadn’t a cent in the world but just the million-pound note she’d heard so much talk about, and it didn’t belong to me, and that started her curiosity; and then I talked low, and told her the whole history right from the start, and it nearly killed her laughing. What in the nation she could find to laugh about I couldn’t see, but there it was; every half-minute some new detail would fetch her, and I would have to stop as much as a minute and a half to give her a chance to settle down again. Why, she laughed herself lame—she did, indeed; I never saw anything like it. I mean I never saw a painful story—a story of a person’s troubles and worries and fears—produce just that kind of effect before. So I loved her all the more, seeing she could be so cheerful when there wasn’t anything to be cheerful about; for I might soon need that kind of wife, you know, the way things looked. Of course, I told her we should have to wait a couple of years, till I could catch up on my salary; but she didn’t mind that, only she hoped I would be as careful as possible in the matter of expenses, and not let them run the least risk of trenching on our third year’s pay. Then she began to get a little worried, and wondered if we were making any mistake, and starting the salary on a higher figure for the first year than I would get. This was good sense, and it made me feel a little less confident than I had been feeling before; but it gave me a good business idea, and I brought it frankly out.
“Portia, dear, would you mind going with me that day, when I confront those old gentlemen?”
She shrank a little, but said:
“N-o; if my being with you would help hearten you. But—would it be quite proper, do you think?”
“No, I don’t know that it would—in fact, I’m afraid it wouldn’t; but, you see, there’s so much dependent upon it that—”
“Then I’ll go anyway, proper or improper,” she said, with a beautiful and generous enthusiasm. “Oh, I shall be so happy to think I’m helping!”
“Helping, dear? Why, you’ll be doing it all. You’re so beautiful and so lovely and so winning, that with you there I can pile our salary up till I break those good old fellows, and they’ll never have the heart to struggle.”
Sho! you should have seen the rich blood mount, and her happy eyes shine!
“You wicked flatterer! There isn’t a word of truth in what you say, but still I’ll go with you. Maybe it will teach you not to expect other people to look with your eyes.”
Were my doubts dissipated? Was my confidence restored? You may judge by this fact: privately I raised my salary to twelve hundred the first year on the spot. But I didn’t tell her: I saved it for a surprise.
All the way home I was in the clouds. Hastings talking, I not hearing a word. When he and I entered my parlor, he brought me to myself with his fervent appreciations of my manifold comforts and luxuries.
“Let me just stand here a little and look my fill. Dear me! it’s a palace—it’s just a palace! And in it everything a body could desire, including cozy coal fire and supper standing ready. Henry, it doesn’t merely make me realize how rich you are; it makes me realize, to the bone, to the marrow, how poor I am—how poor I am, and how miserable, how defeated, routed, annihilated!”
Plague take it! this language gave me the cold shudders. It scared me broad awake, and made me comprehend that I was standing on a half-inch crust, with a crater underneath. I didn’t know I had been dreaming—that is, I hadn’t been allowing myself to know it for a while back; but now—oh, dear! Deep in debt, not a cent in the world, a lovely girl’s happiness or woe in my hands, and nothing in front of me but a salary which might never—oh, would never—materialize! Oh, oh, oh! I am ruined past hope! nothing can save me!
“Henry, the mere unconsidered drippings of your daily income would—”
“Oh, my daily income! Here, down with this hot Scotch, and cheer up your soul. Here’s with you! Or, no—you’re hungry; sit down and—”
“Not a bite for me; I’m past it. I can’t eat, these days; but I’ll drink with you till I drop. Come!”
“Barrel for barrel, I’m with you! Ready? Here we go! Now, then, Lloyd, unreel your story while I brew.”
“Unreel it? What, again?”
“Again? What do you mean by that?”
“Why, I mean do you want to hear it over again?”
“Do I want to hear it over again? This is a puzzler. Wait; don’t take any more of that liquid. You don’t need it.”
“Look here, Henry, you alarm me. Didn’t I tell you the whole story on the way here?”
“You?”
“Yes, I.”
“I’ll be hanged if I heard a word of it.”
“Henry, this is a serious thing. It troubles me. What did you take up yonder at the minister’s?”
Then it all flashed on me, and I owned up like a man.
“I took the dearest girl in this world—prisoner!”
So then he came with a rush, and we shook, and shook, and shook till our hands ached; and he didn’t blame me for not having heard a word of a story which had lasted while we walked three miles. He just sat down then, like the patient, good fellow he was, and told it all over again. Synopsized, it amounted to this: He had come to England with what he thought was a grand opportunity; he had an “option” to sell the Gould and Curry Extension for the “locators” of it, and keep all he could get over a million dollars. He had worked hard, had pulled every wire he knew of, had left no honest expedient untried, had spent nearly all the money he had in the world, had not been able to get a solitary capitalist to listen to him, and his option would run out at the end of the month. In a word, he was ruined. Then he jumped up and cried out:
“Henry, you can save me! You can save me, and you’re the only man in the universe that can. Will you do it? Won’t you do it?”
“Tell me how. Speak out, my boy.”
“Give me a million and my passage home for my ‘option’! Don’t, don’t refuse!”
I was in a kind of agony. I was right on the point of coming out with the words, “Lloyd, I’m a pauper myself—absolutely penniless, and in debt.” But a white-hot idea came flaming through my head, and I gripped my jaws together, and calmed myself down till I was as cold as a capitalist. Then I said, in a commercial and self-possessed way:
“I will save you, Lloyd—”
“Then I’m already saved! God be merciful to you forever! If ever I—”
“Let me finish, Lloyd. I will save you, but not in that way; for that would not be fair to you, after your hard work, and the risks you’ve run. I don’t need to buy mines; I can keep my capital moving, in a commercial center like London, without that; it’s what I’m at, all the time; but here is what I’ll do. I know all about that mine, of course; I know its immense value, and can swear to it if anybody wishes it. You shall sell out inside of the fortnight for three millions cash, using my name freely, and we’ll divide, share and share alike.”
Do you know, he would have danced the furniture to kindling-wood in his insane joy, and broken everything on the place, if I hadn’t tripped him up and tied him.
Then he lay there, perfectly happy, saying:
“I may use your name! Your name—think of it! Man, they’ll flock in droves, these rich Londoners; they’ll fight for that stock! I’m a made man, I’m a made man forever, and I’ll never forget you as long as I live!”
In less than twenty-four hours London was abuzz! I hadn’t anything to do, day after day, but sit at home, and say to all comers:
“Yes; I told him to refer to me. I know the man, and I know the mine. His character is above reproach, and the mine is worth far more than he asks for it.”
Meantime I spent all my evenings at the minister’s with Portia. I didn’t say a word to her about the mine; I saved it for a surprise. We talked salary; never anything but salary and love; sometimes love, sometimes salary, sometimes love and salary together. And my! the interest the minister’s wife and daughter took in our little affair, and the endless ingenuities they invented to save us from interruption, and to keep the minister in the dark and unsuspicious—well, it was just lovely of them!
When the month was up at last, I had a million dollars to my credit in the London and County Bank, and Hastings was fixed in the same way. Dressed at my level best, I drove by the house in Portland Place, judged by the look of things that my birds were home again, went on toward the minister’s and got my precious, and we started back, talking salary with all our might. She was so excited and anxious that it made her just intolerably beautiful. I said:
“Dearie, the way you’re looking it’s a crime to strike for a salary a single penny under three thousand a year.”
“Henry, Henry, you’ll ruin us!”
“Don’t you be afraid. Just keep up those looks and trust to me. It ’ll all come out right.”
So, as it turned out, I had to keep bolstering up her courage all the way. She kept pleading with me, and saying:
“Oh, please remember that if we ask for too much we may get no salary at all; and then what will become of us, with no way in the world to earn our living?”
We were ushered in by that same servant, and there they were, the two old gentlemen. Of course, they were surprised to see that wonderful creature with me, but I said:
“It’s all right, gentlemen; she is my future stay and helpmate.”
And I introduced them to her, and called them by name. It didn’t surprise them; they knew I would know enough to consult the directory. They seated us, and were very polite to me, and very solicitous to relieve her from embarrassment, and put her as much at her ease as they could. Then I said:
“Gentlemen, I am ready to report.”
“We are glad to hear it,” said my man, “For now we can decide the bet which my brother Abel and I made. If you have won for me, you shall have any situation in my gift. Have you the million-pound note?”
“Here it is, sir,” and I handed it to him.
“I’ve won!” he shouted, and slapped Abel on the back. “Now what do you say, brother?”
“I say he did survive, and I’ve lost twenty thousand pounds. I never would have believed it.”
“I’ve a further report to make,” I said, “and a pretty long one. I want you to let me come soon, and detail my whole month’s history; and I promise you it’s worth hearing. Meantime, take a look at that.”
“What, man! Certificate of deposit for £200,000. Is it yours?”
“Mine. I earned it by thirty days’ judicious use of that little loan you let me have. And the only use I made of it was to buy trifles and offer the bill in change.”
“Come, this is astonishing! It’s incredible, man!”
“Never mind, I’ll prove it. Don’t take my word unsupported.”
But now Portia’s turn was come to be surprised. Her eyes were spread wide, and she said:
“Henry, is that really your money? Have you been fibbing to me?”
“I have, indeed, dearie. But you’ll forgive me, I know.”
She put up an arch pout, and said:
“Don’t you be so sure: You are a naughty thing to deceive me so!”
“Oh, you’ll get over it, sweetheart, you’ll get over it; it was only fun, you know. Come, let’s be going.”
“But wait, wait! The situation, you know. I want to give you the situation,” said my man.
“Well,” I said, “I’m just as grateful as I can be, but really I don’t want one.”
“But you can have the very choicest one in my gift.”
“Thanks again, with all my heart; but I don’t even want that one.”
“Henry, I’m ashamed of you. You don’t half thank the good gentleman. May I do it for you?”
“Indeed, you shall, dear, if you can improve it. Let us see you try.”
She walked to my man, got up in his lap, put her arm round his neck, and kissed him right on the mouth. Then the two old gentlemen shouted with laughter, but I was dumb-founded, just petrified, as you may say. Portia said:
“Papa, he has said you haven’t a situation in your gift that he’d take; and I feel just as hurt as—”
“My darling, is that your papa?”
“Yes; he’s my step-papa, and the dearest one that ever was. You understand now, don’t you, why I was able to laugh when you told me at the minister’s, not knowing my relationships, what trouble and worry papa’s and Uncle Abel’s scheme was giving you?”
Of course, I spoke right up now, without any fooling, and went straight to the point.