This is Part 7 of Christian Science and the Book of Mrs. Eddy. Remember its principle great offer, to rid the race of pain and disease. Can it do it? In large measure, yes. How much of the pain and disease in the world is created by the imagination of the sufferers, and then kept alive by those same imaginations? Four-fifths? Not anything short of that, I should think. Can Christian science banish that four-fifths? I think so. Can any other organized force do it? None that I know of. Would this be a new world when that was accomplished, and a pleasanter one? For us well-people, as well as for those fussy and fretting sick ones, would it seem as if there was not as much gloomy weather as there used to be? I think so. In the meantime, would the scientist kill off a good many patients? I think so.  I will take up that question presently. At present I wish to ask you to examine some of the scientist's performances as registered in his magazine, The Christian Science Journal, October number 1898. First, a Baptist clergyman gives us this true picture of the average Orthodox Christian, and he could have added that it is a true picture of the average civilized human being. He is a worried and fretted and fearful man, afraid of himself and his propensities, afraid of colds and fevers, afraid of treading on serpents or drinking deadly things. Then he gives us this contrast. The average Christian scientist has put all anxiety and fretting under his feet. He does have a victory over fear and care that is not achieved by the average Orthodox Christian. He has put all anxiety and fretting under his feet. What proportion of your earnings or income would you be willing to pay for that frame of mind, year in, year out? It really outvalues any price that can be put upon it. Where can you purchase it, at any outlay of any sort, in any church or out of it, except the scientists? Well, it is the anxiety and fretting about colds and fevers and draughts and getting our feet wet and about forbidden food eaten in terror of indigestion that brings on the cold and the fever and the indigestion and the most of our other ailments. And so, if the science can banish that anxiety from the world, I think it can reduce the world's disease and pain about four-fifths. In this October number many of the redeemed testify and give thanks, and not coldly but with passionate gratitude. As a rule they seem drunk with health and with the surprise of it, the wonder of it, the unspeakable glory and splendor of it, after a long sober spell spent in inventing imaginary diseases and concreting them with doctor stuff. The first witness testifies that when this most beautiful truth first dawned on him, he had nearly all the ills that flesh is ere to, that those he did not have he thought he had, and thus made the tale about complete. What was the natural result? Why, he was a dump-pit for all the doctors, drugists, and patent medicines of the country. Christian science came to his help, and the old sick conditions passed away, and along with them the dismal forebodings which he had been accustomed to employ in conjuring up ailments, and so he was a healthy and cheerful man now and astonished. But I am not astonished, for from other sources I know what must have been his method of applying Christian science. If I am in the right, he watchfully and diligently diverted his mind from unhealthy channels and compelled it to travel in healthy ones. Nothing contrivable by human invention could be more formatively effective than that in banishing imaginary ailments and enclosing the entrance against subsequent applications of their breed. I think his method was to keep saying, I am well. I am sound. Sound and well. Well and sound. Perfectly sound. Perfectly well. I have no pain. There's no such thing as pain. I have no disease. There's no such thing as disease. Nothing is real but mind. All is mind. All good. Good. Good. Life. Soul. Liver. Bones. One of a series. Anti-and-pass the buck. I do not mean that that was exactly the formula used, but that it doubtless contains the spirit of it. The scientist would attach value to the exact formula, no doubt, and to the religious spirit in which it was used. I should think that any formula that would divert the mind from unwholesome channels and force it into healthy ones would answer every purpose with some people, though not with all. I think it most likely that a very religious man would find the addition of the religious spirit a powerful reinforcement in his case. The second witness testifies that the science banished an old organic trouble, which the doctor and the surgeon had been nursing with drugs and the knife for seven years. He calls it his claim. A surface miner would think it was not his claim at all but the property of the doctor and his pal the surgeon, for he would be misled by that word, which is Christian science slang for ailment. The Christian scientist has no ailment. To him there is no such thing, and he will not use the lying word. All that happens to him is that upon his attention an imaginary disturbance sometimes obtrudes itself which claims to be an ailment but isn't. This witness offers testimony for a clergyman seventy years old who had preached forty years in a Christian church and has not gone over to the new sect. He was almost blind and deaf. He was treated by the C. S. method, and when he heard the voice of truth he saw spiritually. Saw spiritually. It is a little indefinite. They had better treat him again. Indefinite testimonies might properly be wastebasketed, since there is evidently no lack of definite ones procurable, but this C. S. magazine is poorly edited and so mistakes of this kind must be expected. The next witness is a soldier of the Civil War. When Christian science found him he had in stock the following claims. Indigestion, rheumatism, Qatar, chalky deposits in shoulder joints, arm joints, hand joints, atrophy of the muscles of arms, shoulders, stiffness of all those joints, insomnia, excruciating pains most of the time. These claims have a very substantial sound. They came of exposure in the campaigns. The doctors did all they could, but it was little. Prayers were tried. But I never realized any physical relief from that source. After thirty years of torture he went to a Christian scientist and took an hours treatment and went home painless. Two days later he began to eat like a well man. Then the claims vanished some at once others more gradually. Finally they have almost entirely disappeared. And a thing which is of still greater value he is now contented and happy. That is a detail which, as earlier remarked, is a scientist-church specialty. With thirty-one years' effort the Methodist Church had not succeeded in furnishing it to this harassed soldier. And so the tale goes on. Witness after witness bulletins his claims, declares their prompt abolishment, and gives Mrs. Eddy's discovery the praise. Milk-leg is cured, nervous prostration is cured, consumption is cured, and St. Vitus's dance made a pastime. And now and then an interesting new addition to the science slang appears on the page. We have demonstrations over chitlblanes and such things. It seems to be a curtailed way of saying demonstrations of the power of Christian science truth over the fiction which masquerades under the name of chitlblanes. The children, as well as the adults share in the blessings of the science, through the study of the little book they are learning how to be healthful, peaceful, and wise. Sometimes they are cured of their little claims by the professional healer, and sometimes more advanced children say over the formula and cure themselves. A little far western girl of nine, equipped with an adult vocabulary, states her age and says, I thought I would write a demonstration to you. She had a claim derived from getting flung over a pony's head and landed on a rock pile. She saved herself from disaster by remembering to say, God is all while she was in the air. I couldn't have done it. I shouldn't have even thought of it. I should have been too excited. Nothing but Christian science could have enabled that child to do that calm and thoughtful and judicious thing in those circumstances. She came down on her head, and by all the rules she should have broken it. But the intervention of the formula prevented that, so the only claim resulting was a blackened eye. Monday morning it was still swollen and shut. At school it hurt pretty bad, that is, it seemed to. So I was excused and went down in the basement and said, Now I am depending on Mama instead of God, and I will depend on God instead of Mama. No doubt this would have answered, but to make sure she added Mrs. Eddy to the team and recited the scientific statement of being, which is one of the principal incantations, I judge, then I felt my eye opening. Why, it would have opened an oyster. I think it is one of the touchingest things in child history, that pious little rat down cellar pumping away at the scientific statement of being. There is a page about another good child, little Gordon. Little Gordon came into the world without the assistance of surgery or anesthetics. He was a demonstration, a painless one. Therefore his coming evoked joy and thankfulness to God and the discoverer of Christian science. It is a noticeable feature of this literature, the so frequent linking together of the two beings in an equal bond, also of their two Bibles. When little Gordon was two years old, he was playing horse on the bed where I had left my little book. I noticed him stop in his play, take the book carefully in his little hands, kiss it softly, then look about for the highest place of safety his arms could reach and put it there. This pious act filled the mother with such a train of thought as I had never experienced before. I thought of the sweet mother of long ago who kept things in her heart, etc. It is a bold comparison. However unconscious profanations are about as common in the mouths of the lay membership of the new church as are frank and open ones in the mouths of its consecrated chiefs. Some days later the family library, Christian science books, was lying in a deep seated window. It was another chance for the Holy Child to show off. He left his play and went there and pushed all the books to one side except the annex. It, he took in both hands, slowly raised it to his lips, then removed it carefully and seated himself in the window. It had seemed to the mother too powerful to be true that first time, but now she was convinced that neither imagination nor accident had anything to do with it. Later little Gordon let the author of his being see him do it. After that he did it frequently, probably every time anybody was looking. I would rather have that child than a chromo. If this tale has any object it is to intimate that the inspired book was supernaturally able to convey a sense of its sacred and awful character to this innocent little creature without the intervention of outside aides. The magazine is not edited with high-priced discretion. The editor has a claim, and he ought to get it treated. Among other witnesses there is one who had a jumping toothache which several times tempted her to believe that there was sensation in matter, but each time it was overcome by the power of truth. She would not allow the dentist to use cocaine but sat there and let him punch and drill and split and crush the tool and tear and slash its ulcerations and pull out the nerve and dig out fragments of bone, and she wouldn't once confess that it hurt. And to this day she thinks it didn't, and I have no doubt that she is nine-tenths right and that her Christian science faith did her better service than she could have gotten out of cocaine. There is an account of a boy who got broken all up into small bits by an accident, but said over the scientific statement of being or some of the other incantations, and got well in sound without having suffered any real pain and without the intrusion of a surgeon. I can believe this because my own case was somewhat similar as per my former article. Also there is an account of the restoration to perfect health in a single night of a fatally injured horse by the application of Christian science. I can stand a good deal, but I recognize that the ice is getting thin here. That horse had as many as fifty claims. How could he demonstrate over them? Could he do the all good, good, good, good gracious, liver, bones, truth, all down but nine, set them up on the other alley? Could he intone the scientific statement of being? Now could he? Wouldn't it give him a relapse? Let us draw the line at horses, horses and furniture. There is a plenty of other testimonies in the magazine, but these quoted samples will answer. They show the kind of trade the science is driving. Now we come back to the question, does it kill a patient here and there and now and then? We must concede it. Does it compensate for this? I am persuaded that it can make a plausible showing in that direction. For instance, when it lays its hands upon a soldier who has suffered thirty years of helpless torture and makes him whole in body and mind, what is the actual sum of that achievement? This, I think, that it has restored to life a subject who had essentially died ten deaths a year for thirty years, and each of them a long and painful one, but for its interference that man would have essentially died thirty times more in the three years which have since elapsed. There are thousands of young people in the land who are now ready to enter upon a lifelong death similar to that man's. Every time the science captures one of these and secures to him lifelong immunity from imagination-manufactured disease, it may plausibly claim that in his person it has saved three hundred lives. Meantime, it will kill a man every now and then, but no matter it will still be ahead on the credit side. End of Part 7 of Christian Science and the Book of Mrs. Eddy. End of Section 9 of The Man That Corrupted Hadley Berg and Other Stories by Mark Twain. This is Part 8 of Christian Science and the Book of Mrs. Eddy. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit LibriVox.org. The Man That Corrupted Hadley Berg and Other Stories by Mark Twain. Section 11, Christian Science and the Book of Mrs. Eddy, Part 8. We consciously declare that science and health with key to the scriptures was foretold as well as its author, Mary Baker Eddy, in Revelation 10. She is the mighty angel, or God's highest thought to this age, verse 1, giving us the spiritual interpretation of the Bible in the Little Book Open, verse 2. Thus we prove that Christian Science is the second coming of Christ, Truth, Spirit. Lecture by Dr. George Tompkins, D.D.C.S. There you have it in plain speech. She is the mighty angel. She is the Divinely and officially sent bearer of God's highest thought. For the present she brings the second advent. We must expect that before she has been in her grave fifty years she will be regarded by her following as having been herself the second advent. She is already worshiped, and we must expect this feeling to spread territorially and also to deepen in intensity. Footnote 1. After raising a dead child to life, the disciple who did it writes an account of her performance to Mrs. Eddy and closes it thus. My prayer daily is to be more spiritual, that I may do more as you would have me do, and may we all love you more, and so live it, that the world may know that the Christ is come. Printed in the Concord, New Hampshire, Independent Statesman, March 9, 1899. If this is no worship it is a good imitation of it. Particularly after her death. For then, as any one can foresee, Eddy worship will be taught in the Sunday schools and pulpits of the cult. Already whatever she puts her trademark on, though it be only a memorial spoon, is holy, and is eagerly and passionately and gratefully bought by the disciple, and becomes a fetish in his house. I say bought, for the Boston Christian Science Trust gives nothing away. Everything it has for sale. And the terms are cash, and not cash only, but cash in advance. It's God is Mrs. Eddy first, then the dollar. Not a spiritual dollar, but a real one. From end to end of the Christian Science Literature not a single material thing in the world is conceded to be real, except the dollar. But all through and through its advertisements that reality is eagerly and persistently recognized. The hunger of the trust for the dollar, its adoration of the dollar, its lust after the dollar, its ecstasy in the mere thought of the dollar. There has been nothing like it in the world in any age or country, nothing so coarse, nothing so lubricious, nothing so bestial, except a French novel's attitude towards adultery. The dollar is hunted down in all sorts of ways. The Christian Science Mother Church and bargain counter in Boston pedals all kinds of spiritual wares to the faithful, always at extravagant prices, and always on the one condition, cash, cash in advance. The angel of the apocalypse could not go there and get a copy of his own pirated book on credit. Many, many precious Christian Science things are to be had there for cash. Bible Lessons, Church Manual, C. S. Himnall, History of the Building of the Mother Church, Lot of Sermons, Communion hymn, Saw Ye My Saviour, by Mrs. Eddy, half a dollar a copy, words used by special permission of Mrs. Eddy. Also we have Mrs. Eddy's and the angel's little Bible annex in eight styles of binding at eight kinds of war prices. Among these a sweet thing in Levant, Divinity Circuit, Leatherline to Edge, Round Corners, Gold Edge, Silk Soad, each prepaid six dollars. And if you take a million, you get them a shilling cheaper. That is to say prepaid five dollars and seventy-five cents. Also we have Mrs. Eddy's miscellaneous writings at noble big prices, the Divinity Circuit style heading the extortions, shilling discount where you take an addition. Next comes Christ and Christmas by the fertile Mrs. Eddy, a poem, I would God I could see it, price three dollars cash in advance. Then follow five more books by Mrs. Eddy at highwaymen's rates, as usual, some of them in leatherette covers, some of them in pebbled cloth with Divinity Circuit, compensation balance, twin screw, and the other modern improvements. And at the same bargain counter can be had the Christian Science Journal. I wish it were in refined taste to apply a rudely and ruggedly descriptive epithet to that literary slush bucket so as to give one an accurate idea of what it is like. I am moved to do it, but I must not. It is better to be refined than accurate when one is talking about a production like that. Christian Science literary olio margarine is a monopoly of the Mother Church Headquarters factory in Boston, none genuine without the trademark of the trust.  The trust has still other sources of income. Mrs. Eddy is president and perhaps proprietor of the Trust's Metaphysical College in Boston, where the student who has practiced C. S. Healing during three years, the best he knew how, perfects himself in the game by a two weeks course and pays $100 for it. And I have a case among my statistics where the student had a three weeks course and paid $300 for it. The trust does love the dollar when it isn't a spiritual one. In order to force the sale of Mrs. Eddy's Bible Annex, no healer, Metaphysical College Bread or other, is allowed to practice the game unless he possesses a copy of that holy nightmare. That means a large and constantly augmenting income for the trust. No C. S. Family would consider itself loyal or pious or pain-proof, without an annex or two in the house. That means an income for the trust, in the near future, of millions, not thousands, millions a year. No member, young or old, of a Christian Scientist Church, can retain that membership unless he pay capitation tax to the Boston Trust every year. That means an income for the trust, in the near future, of millions more per year. It is a reasonably safe guess that in America, in 1910, there will be 10 million Christian scientists, and three million in Great Britain, that these figures will be trebled by 1920, that in America in 1910 the Christian Scientist will be a political force, and in 1920 politically formidable, to remain that permanently. And I think it a reasonable guess that the trust, which is already in our day pretty brusque in its ways, will then be the most insolent and unscrupulous and tyrannical political religious master that has dominated a people since the palmy days of the Inquisition, and a stronger master than the strongest of bygone times, because this one will have a financial strength not dreamed of by any predecessor, as effective a concentration of irresponsible power as any predecessor had, in the railway, the telegraph, and the subsidized newspaper, better facilities for watching and managing his empire than any predecessor has had, and after a generation or two, he will probably divide Christendom with the Catholic Church. The Roman Church has a perfect organization, and it has an effective centralization of power, but not of its cash. Its multitude of bishops are rich, but their riches remain in large volume in their own hands. They collect from two hundred million of people, but they keep the bulk of the result at home. The Boston Pope of by and by will draw his dollar-ahead capitation tax from three hundred million of the human race, and the annex and the rest of his bookshop will fetch in double as much more, and his metaphysical colleges, the annual pilgrimage to Mrs. Eddie's tomb, from all over the world, admission, a Christian science dollar payable in advance, purchases of consecrated glass beads, candles, memorial spoons, Oriole chromoportraits, and bogus autographs of Mrs. Eddie, cash offerings at her shrine, no crutches of cured cripples received, and no imitations of miraculously restored broken legs and necks allowed to be hung up, except when made out of the holy metal and proved by fire assay. Cash for miracles worked at the tomb. These money sources, with a thousand to be yet invented and ambushed upon the devotee, will bring the annual increment well up above a billion, and nobody but the trust will have the handling of it. No bishops appointed unless they agree to hand in ninety percent of the catch. In that day the trust will monopolize the manufacture and sale of the old and new testaments, as well as the annex, and raise their price to annex rates, and compel the devotee to buy, for even today a healer has to have the annex and the scriptures, or he is not allowed to work the game, and that will bring several hundred million dollars more. In those days the trust will have an income approaching five million dollars a day, and no expenses to be taken out of it, no taxes to pay, and no charities to support. That last detail should not be lightly passed over by the reed, it is well entitled to attention. No charities to support. No, nor even to contribute to. One searches in vain the trust's advertisements and the utterances of its pulpit for any suggestion that it spends a penny on orphans, widows, discharge prisoners, hospitals, ragged schools, night missions, city missions, foreign missions, libraries, old people's homes, or any other subject that appeals to a human being's purse through his heart. Footnote number two. In the past two years the membership of the established Church of England have given voluntary contributions amounting to seventy-three million dollars to the Church's benevolent enterprises. Churches that give have nothing to hide. I have hunted, hunted and hunted by correspondence and otherwise, and have not yet got upon it the track of a farthing that the trust has spent upon any worthy object. Nothing makes a scientist so uncomfortable as to ask him if he knows of a case where Christian science has spent money on a benevolence, either among its own adherence or elsewhere. He is obliged to say no, and then one discovers that the person questioned has been asked the question many times before, and that it is getting to be a sore subject with him. Why a sore subject? Because he has written his chiefs and asked with high confidence for an answer that will confound these questioners, and the chiefs did not reply. He has written again, and then again, not with confidence, but humbly, now, and has begged for a defensive ammunition in the voice of supplication. Reply does at last come to this effect. We must have faith in our mother, and rest content in the conviction that whatever she—footnote three. I may be introducing the capital S a little early, still it is on its way. Whatever she does with the money it is in accordance with orders from heaven, for she does not act of any kind without first demonstrating over it. That settles it as far as the disciple is concerned. His mind is entirely satisfied with that answer. He gets down his annex and does an incantation or two, and that mesmerizes his spirit and puts that to sleep—brings it peace. Peace and comfort and joy. Until some inquire punctures the old sore again. Through friends in America I ask some questions, and in some cases got definite and informing answers. In other cases the answers were not definite and not valuable. From the definite answers I gather that the capitation tax is compulsory, and that the sum is one dollar. To the question, does any of the money go to charities? The answer from an authoritative source was, no, not in the sense usually conveyed by this word, the italics are mine. That answer is cautious, but definite, I think, utterly and unassailably definite, although quite Christian scientifically foggy in its phrasing. Christian science is generally foggy, generally diffuse, generally garless. The writer was aware that the first word in his phrase answered the question which I was asking, but he could not help adding nine dark words. Meaningless ones, unless explained by him. It is quite likely, as intimated by him, that Christian science has invented a new class of objects to apply the word charity to, but without an explanation we cannot know what they are. We quite easily and naturally and confidently guess that they are, in all cases, objects which will return five hundred percent on the trust's investment in them, but guessing is not knowledge. It is merely, in this case, a sort of nine-tenth certainty deductible from what we think we know of the trust's trade principles, and its sly, infertive, and shifty ways. Sly, deep, judicious. The trust understands business. The trust does not give itself away. It defeats all the attempts of us impertinence to get at its trade secrets. To this day, after all our diligence, we have not been able to get it to confess what it does with the money. It does not even let its own disciples find out. All it says is that the matter has been demonstrated over. Now and then a lay scientist says, with a grateful exaltation, that Mrs. Eddy is enormously rich, but he stops there. As to whether any of the money goes to other charities or not, he's obliged to admit that he does not know. However, the trust is composed of human beings, and this justifies the conjecture that if it had a charity on its lists, which it did not need to blush for, we should soon hear of it. Without money and without price, those used to be the terms. Mrs. Eddy's annex cancels them. The motto of Christian science is, the labourer is worthy of his hire. And now that it has been demonstrated over, we find its spiritual meaning to be, do anything and everything your hand may find to do, and charge cash for it, and collect the money in advance. The scientist has on his tongue's end a cut-and-dried Boston-supplied set of rather lean arguments, whose function is to show that it is a heaven-commanded duty to do this, and that the croupiers of the game have no choice but to obey. The trust seems to be a reincarnation. Exodus 32, verse 4. I have no reverence for Mrs. Eddy and the rest of the trust, if there is a rest, but I am not lacking in reverence for the sincerities of the lay membership of the new church. There is every evidence that the lay members are entirely sincere in their faith, and I think sincerity is always entitled to honour and respect. Let the inspiration of the sincerity be what it may. Zeal and sincerity can carry a new religion further than any other missionary except fire and sword, and I believe that the new religion will conquer the half of Christendom in a hundred years. I am not intending this as a compliment to the human race. I am merely stating an opinion. And yet I think that perhaps it is a compliment to the race. I keep in mind that saying of an Orthodox preacher, quoted further back, he conceded that this new Christianity frees its possessors life from frets, fears, vexations, bitterness, and all sorts of imagination propagated maladies and pains, and fills his world with sunshine and his heart with gladness. If Christian science with this stupendous equipment and final salvation added cannot win half the Christian globe, I must be badly mistaken in the makeup of the human race. I think the trust will be handed down like the other papacy, and will always know how to handle its limitless cash. It will press the button, the zeal, the energy, the sincerity, the enthusiasm of its countless vassals will do the rest. 12 Christian Science and the Book of Mrs. Eddy, Part 9 The power which a man's imagination has over his body to heal it or make it sick, is a force which none of us is born without. The first man had it, the last one will possess it. If left to himself a man is most likely to use only the mischievous half of the force, the half which invents imaginary ailments for him and cultivates them, and if he is one of these very wise people he is quite likely to scoff at the beneficent half of the force and deny its existence, and so to heal or help that man two imaginations are required, his own and some outsiders. The outsider, B, must imagine that his incantations are the healing power that is curing A, and A must imagine that this is so. It is not so at all, but no matter the cure is affected, and that is the main thing. The outsider's work is unquestionably valuable, so valuable that it may fairly be likened to the essential work performed by the engineer when he handles the throttle and turns on the steam. The actual power is lodged exclusively in the engine, but if the engine were left alone it would never start of itself. Whether the engineer be named Jim or Bob or Tom it is all one, his services are necessary and he is entitled to such wage as he can get you to pay. Whether he be named Christian Scientist or Mental Scientist or Mind Curist or Lourdes Miracle Worker or King's Evil Expert it is all one. He is merely the engineer. He simply turns on the same old steam and the engine does the whole work. In the case of the cure engine it is a distinct advantage to clothe the engineer in religious overalls and give him a pious name. It greatly enlarges the business and does no one any harm. The Christian Scientist engineer drives exactly the same trade as the other engineers, yet he outprospers the whole of them put together. Is it because he has captured the takingest name? I think that that is only a small part of it. I think that the secret of his high prosperity lies elsewhere. The Christian Scientist has organized the business. Now that was certainly a gigantic idea. There is more intellect in it than would be needed in the invention of a couple of millions of any science and health Bible annexes. Electricity, in limitless volume, has existed in the air and the rocks and the earth and everywhere since time began and was going to waste all the while. In our time we have organized that scattered and wandering force and set it to work and backed the business with capital and concentrated in a few and competent hands and the results are as we see. The Christian Scientist has taken a force which has been lying idle in every member of the human race since time began and has organized it and backed the business with capital and concentrated it at Boston headquarters in the hands of a small and very competent trust and there are results. Therein lies the promise that this monopoly is going to extend its commerce wide in the earth. I think that if the business were conducted in the loose and disconnected fashion customary with such things it would achieve but little more than the modest prosperity usually secured by unorganized great moral and commercial ventures. But I believe that so long as this one remains compactly organized and closely concentrated in a trust the spread of its dominion will continue. Vienna, May 1st, 1899. End of Part 9 of Christian Science and the Book of Mrs. Eddie and end of Section 12 of The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg and Other Stories by Mark Twain. This is Is He Living or Is He Dead? This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer visit LibriVox.org. The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg and Other Stories by Mark Twain. Section 13. Is He Living or Is He Dead? I was spending the month of March, 1892, at Monton in the Riviera. At this retired spot one has all the advantages, privately, which are to be had publicly at Monte Carlo and Nice a few miles farther along, that is to say one has the flooding sunshine, the balmy air and the brilliant blue sea without the marring addition of human powwow and fuss and feathers and display. Monton is quiet, simple, restful, unpretentious. The rich and the gaudy do not come there. As a rule I mean the rich do not come there. Now and then a rich man comes and I presently got acquainted with one of these. Partially to disguise him I will call him Smith. One day in the Hotel des Anglais at the second breakfast he exclaimed, Quick! Cast your eye on the man going out at the door. Take in every detail of him. Why? Do you know who he is? Yes, he spent several days here before you came. He is an old, retired and very rich silk manufacturer from Lyon, they say. And I guess he is alone in the world, for he always looks sad and dreamy and doesn't talk with anybody. His name is Théophile Mignon. I suppose that Smith would now proceed to justify the large interest which he had shown in Monsieur Mignon, but instead he dropped into a brown study and was apparently lost to me and to the rest of the world during some minutes. Now and then he passed his fingers through his flossy white hair to assist his thinking, and meantime he allowed his breakfast to go on cooling. At last he said, No, it's gone. I can't call it back. Can't call what back? It's one of Hans Anderson's beautiful little stories, but it's gone from me. Part of it is like this, a child has a caged bird which it loves but thoughtlessly neglects. The bird pours out its song unheard and unheeded, but in time hunger and thirst assail the creature, and its song grows plaintive and feeble and finally ceases. The bird dies. The child comes and is smitten to the heart with remorse. Then with bitter tears and lamentations it calls its mates, and they bury the bird with elaborate pomp and the tenderest grief without knowing, poor things, that it isn't children only who starve poets to death and then spend enough on their funerals and monuments to have kept them alive and made them easy and comfortable. Now, but here we were interrupted. About ten that evening I ran across Smith and he asked me up to his parlor to help him smoke and drink hot scotch. It was a cozy place with its comfortable chairs, its cheerful lamps, and its friendly open fire of seasoned olive wood. To make everything perfect there was a muffled booming of the surf outside. After the second scotch and much lazy and contented chat Smith said, Now we are properly primed. I to tell a curious history and you to listen to it. It has been a secret for many years, a secret between me and three others, but I am going to break the seal now. Are you comfortable? Perfectly. Go on. Here follows what he told me. A long time ago I was a young artist, a very young artist in fact, and I wandered about the country parts of France, sketching here and sketching there, and was presently joined by a couple of darling young Frenchmen who were at the same kind of thing that I was doing. We were as happy as we were poor or as poor as we were happy—phrase it to suit yourself—Claude Frère and Carl Blanchet, these are the names of those boys, dear, dear fellows, and the sunniest spirits that ever laughed at poverty and had a noble good time in all weathers. At last we ran hard aground in a Breton village and an artist as poor as ourselves took us in and literally saved us from starving. François Millet. What! The great François Millet? Great! He wasn't any greater than we were then. He hadn't any fame, even in his own village, and he was so poor that he hadn't anything to feed us on, but turnips—and even the turnips failed us sometimes. We four became fast friends, doting friends, inseparables. We painted away together with all our might, piling up stock, but very seldom getting rid of any of it. We had lovely times together, but—oh, my soul, how we were pinched now and then. For a little over two years this went on. At last, one day, Claude said, Boys, we've come to the end. Do you understand that? Absolutely to the end. Everybody has struck. There's a league formed against us. I've been all around the village and it's just as I tell you, they refused to credit us for another sopteam until all the odds and ends are paid up. This struck us as cold. Every face was blank with dismay. We realized that our circumstances were desperate now. There was a long silence. Finally Millet said with a sigh, Nothing occurs to me. Nothing! Suggest something, lads? There was no response, unless a mournful silence may be called a response. Carl got up and walked nervously up and down a while, then said, It's a shame. Look at these canvases. Stacks and stacks of as good pictures as anybody in Europe paints. I don't care who he is. Yes, and plenty of lounging strangers have said the same, or nearly that anyway. But didn't buy, Millet said. No matter, they said it, and it's true, too. Look at your Angelus there. Will anybody tell me— Ah, Carl! My Angelus! I was offered five francs for it. When? Who offered it? Where is he? Why didn't you take it? Come, don't all speak at once. I thought he would give more. I was sure of it. He looked at it, so I asked him eight. Well, and then he said he would call again. Thunder and lightning. Why, François? Oh, I know, I know.  Boys, I meant for the best. You'll grant me that. And I—why, certainly we know that. Bless your dear heart. But don't you be a fool again. I? I wish somebody would come along and offer us a cabbage for it. You'd see. A cabbage? Oh, don't name it. It makes my mouth water. Talk of things less trying. Boys, said Carl, do these pictures lack merit? Answer me that. No. Aren't they of very great and high merit? Answer me that. Yes. Of such great and high merit that, if an illustrious name were attached to them, they would sell at splendid prices. Isn't it so? Certainly it is. Nobody doubts that. But I'm not joking. Isn't it so? Why, of course it's so. And we are not joking. But what of it? What of it? How does that concern us? In this way, comrades, we'll attach an illustrious name to them. The lively conversation stopped. The faces were turned inquiringly upon Carl. What sort of riddle might this be? Where was an illustrious name to be borrowed? And who was to borrow it? Carl sat down and said, Now, I have a perfectly serious thing to propose. I think it is the only way to keep us out of the alms-house, and I believe it to be a perfectly sure way. I base this opinion upon certain multitudinous and long-established facts in human history. I believe my project will make us all rich. Rich! You've lost your mind. No, I haven't. Yes, you have. You've lost your mind. What do you call rich? A hundred thousand francs apiece. He has lost his mind. I knew it. Yes, he has. Carl, privation has been too much for you, and Carl, you want to take a pill and get right to bed. Bandage him first, bandage his head, and then— No! Bandage his heels! His brains have been settling for weeks, I've noticed it.  And let the boy have his say. Now, then, come out with your project, Carl. What is it? Well, then, by way of preamble, I will ask you to note this fact in human history, that the merit of many a great artist has never been acknowledged until after he was starved and dead. This has happened so often that I make bold to found a law upon it. This law, that the merit of every great unknown and neglected artist must and will be recognized, and his pictures climb to high prices after his death. My project is this. We must cast lots.  The remark fell so calmly and so unexpectedly that we almost forgot to jump. Then there was a wild chorus of advice again, medical advice, for the help of Carl's brain. But he waited patiently for the hilarity to calm down, and then went on again with his project. Yes, one of us must die. To save the others and himself. We will cast lots. One chosen shall be illustrious. All of us shall be rich. Hold still now. Hold still. Don't interrupt.  Here is the idea.  Meaningless, of course, but his, with his cipher on them. Turn out fifty a day, each, to contain some peculiarity or mannerism easily detectable as his. They're the things that sell, you know, and are collected at fabulous prices for the world's museums after the great man is gone. We'll have a ton of them ready, a ton, and all that time the rest of us will be busy supporting the moribund and working Paris and the dealers' preparations for the coming event, you know, and when everything is hot and just right, we'll spring the death on them and have the notorious funeral. You get the idea? No. At least not quite. Not quite. Don't you see? The man doesn't really die. He changes his name and vanishes. We bury a dummy and cry over it, with all the world to help. And I—but he wasn't allowed to finish. Everybody broke out into a rousing hurrah of applause, and all jumped up and capered about the room and fell on each other's necks in transports of gratitude and joy. For hours we talked over the great plan, without ever feeling hungry, and at last, when all the details had been arranged satisfactorily, we cast lots, and Millet was elected, elected to die, as we called it. Then we scraped together those things which one never parts with until he is getting them against future wealth, keepsake trinkets and such like, and these we pawned for enough to furnish us a frugal farewell supper and breakfast, and leave us a few francs over for travel, and a steak of turnips and such for Millet to live on for a few days. Next morning, early, the three of us cleared out, straight away after breakfast, on foot, of course. Each of us carried a dozen of Millet's small pictures, proposing to market them. Carl struck for Paris, where he would start the work of building up Millet's name against the coming great day. Claude and I were to separate and scatter abroad over France. Now it will surprise you to know what an easy and comfortable thing we had. I walked two days before I began business, then I began to sketch a villa in the outskirts of a big town, because I saw the proprietor standing on an upper veranda. He came to look on, I thought he would. I worked swiftly, intending to keep him interested. Occasionally he fired off a little ejaculation of approbation, and by and by he spoke up with enthusiasm and said I was a master. I put down my brush, reached into my satchel, fetched out of Millet, and pointed to the cipher in the corner. I said proudly, I suppose you recognize that. Well, he taught me. I should think I ought to know my trade. The man looked guiltily embarrassed, and was silent. I said sorrowfully, you don't mean to intimate—that you don't know the cipher of François Millet. Of course, he didn't know that cipher, but he was the gratefulest man you ever saw, just the same, for being let out of an uncomfortable place on such easy terms. He said, No. Why it is Millet, sure enough. I don't know what I could have been thinking of. Of course I recognize it now. Next he wanted to buy it, but I said that although I wasn't rich, I wasn't that poor. However, at last I let him have it for eight hundred francs. Eight hundred? Yes, Millet would have sold it for a pork chop. Yes, I got eight hundred francs for that little thing. I wish I could get it back for eighty thousand, but that time's gone by. I made a very nice picture of that man's house, and I wanted to offer it to him for ten francs, but that wouldn't answer, seeing I was the pupil of such a master. So I sold it to him for a hundred. I sent the eight hundred francs straight to Millet from that town, and struck out again next day. But I didn't walk. No. I rode. I have ridden never since. I sold one picture every day, and never tried to sell two. I always said to my customer, I am a fool to sell a picture of François Millet's at all, for that man is not going to live three months, and when he dies his pictures can't be had for love or money. I took care to spread that little fact as far as I could and prepare the world for the event. I take credit to myself for our plan of selling the pictures. It was mine. I suggested it that last evening when we were laying out our campaign, and all three of us agreed to give it a good fair trial before giving it up for some other. It succeeded with all of us. I walked only two days, Claude walked two, both of us afraid to make Millet celebrated too close to home, but Carl walked only half a day, the bright, conscientious-less rascal, and after that he travelled like a Duke. Every now and then we got in with a country editor and started an item around through the press, not an item announcing that a new painter had been discovered, but an item which let on that everybody knew François Millet, not an item praising him in any way, but merely a word concerning the present condition of the master, sometimes hopeful, sometimes despondent, but always tinged with fears for the worst. We always marked these paragraphs and sent the papers to all the people who had bought pictures of us. Carl was soon in Paris, and he worked things with a high hand. He made friends with the correspondence, and got Millet's condition reported to England and all over the continent, and America, and everywhere. At the end of six weeks from the start we three met in Paris and called a halt, and stopped sending back to Millet for additional pictures. The boom was so high, and everything so ripe, that we saw that it would be a mistake not to strike now, right away, without waiting any longer. So we wrote Millet to go to bed and begin to waste away pretty fast, for we should like him to die in ten days if he could get ready. Then we figured up and found that among us we had sold eighty-five small pictures and studies, and had sixty-nine thousand francs to show for it. Carl had made the last sale, and the most brilliant one of all, he sold the Angelus for twenty-two hundred francs. How we did glorify him, not foreseeing that a day was coming by and by, when France would struggle to own it, and a stranger would capture it for five hundred and fifty thousand cash. We had to wind up Champagne supper that night, and next day Claude and I packed up, and went off to nurse Millet through his last days, and keep busybodies out of the house, and send daily bulletins to Carl in Paris for publication in the papers of several continents for the information of a waiting world. The sad end came at last, and Carl was there in time to help in the final mournful rites. You remember that great funeral, and what a stir it made all over the globe, and how the illustrious of two worlds came to attend it and testify their sorrow. We four, still inseparable, carried the coffin, and would allow none to help, and we were right about that, because it hadn't anything in it but a wax figure, and any other coffin-bearers would have found fault with the wait. Yes, we same old four, who had lovingly shared privation together in the old hard times now gone forever, carried the coffin which four? We four, for Millet helped to carry his own coffin, in disguise, you know, disguised as a relative, a distant relative, astonishing, but true just the same. Well, you remember how the pictures went up? Money? We didn't know what to do with it. There's a man in Paris today who owns seventy Millet pictures. He paid us two million francs for them, and as for the bushels of sketches and studies which Millet shoveled out during the six weeks that we were on the road? Well, it would astonish you to know the figure we sell them at nowadays, that is, when we consent to let one go. It is a wonderful history, perfectly wonderful. Yes, it amounts to that. Whatever became of Millet? Can you keep a secret? I can. Do you remember the man I called your attention to in the dining-room today? That was François Millet. Great! Scott, yes, for once they didn't starve a genius to death and then put into other pockets the rewards he should have had himself. This songbird was not allowed to pipe out its heart unheard and then be paid with the cold pomp of a big funeral. We looked out for that. End of Is He Living or Is He Dead? And end of Section 13 of The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg and Other Stories by Mark Twain. This is my debut as a literary person. Part 1 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit LibriVox.org. The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg and Other Stories by Mark Twain. Section 14 My debut as a literary person. Part 1 In those early days I had already published one little thing, The Jumping Frog, in an Eastern paper, but I did not consider that that counted. In my view, a person who published things in a mere newspaper could not properly claim recognition as a literary person. He must rise away above that. He must appear in a magazine. He would then be a literary person. Also he would be famous right away. These two ambitions were strong upon me. This was in 1866. I prepared my contribution, and then looked around for the best magazine to go up to glory in. I selected the most important one in New York. The contribution was accepted. I signed it Mark Twain. For that name had some currency on the Pacific Coast, and it was my idea to spread it all over the world now at this one jump. The article appeared in the December number, and I sat up a month waiting for the January number, for that one would contain the year's list of contributors. My name would be in it, and I should be famous, and could give the banquet I was meditating. I did not give the banquet. I had not written the Mark Twain distinctly. It was a fresh name to Eastern printers, and they put it Mike Swain, or McSwain. I do not remember which. At any rate I was not celebrated, and I did not give the banquet. I was a literary person, but that was all. A buried one. Buried alive. My article was about the burning of the Clippership Hornet on the line, May 3, 1866. There were thirty-one men on board at the time, and I was in Honolulu when the fifteen lean and ghostly survivors arrived there after a voyage of forty-three days in an open boat through the blazing tropics on ten days rations of food. A very remarkable trip, but it was conducted by a captain who was a remarkable man, otherwise there would have been no survivors. He was a New Englander of the best seagoing stock of the old capable times, Captain Josiah Mitchell. I was in the islands to write letters for the weekly edition of the Sacramento Union, a rich and influential daily journal which hadn't any use for them, but could afford to spend twenty dollars a week for nothing. The proprietors were lovable and well-beloved men, long ago dead, no doubt, but in me there is at least one person who still holds them in grateful remembrance, for I dearly wanted to see the islands, and they listened to me and gave me the opportunity, when there was but slender likelihood, that it could profit them in any way. I had been in the islands several months when the survivors arrived. I was laid up in my room at the time and unable to walk. Here was a great occasion to serve my journal, and I not able to take advantage of it. Necessarily I was in deep trouble, but by good luck his Excellency Anson Burlingame was there at the time on his way to take up his post in China, where he did such good work for the United States. He came and put me on a stretcher, and had me carried to the hospital where the shipped wrecked men were, and I never needed to ask a question. He attended to all of that himself, and I had nothing to do but make the notes. It was like him to take that trouble. He was a great man and a great American, and it was in his fine nature to come down from his high office and do a friendly turn whenever he could. We got through with this work at six in the evening. I took no dinner, for there was no time to spare if I would beat the other correspondents. I spent four hours arranging the notes in their proper order, then wrote all night and beyond it, with this result, that I had a very long and detailed account of the Hornet episode ready at nine in the morning, while the other correspondents of the San Francisco journals had nothing but a brief outline to report, for they didn't sit up. The now and then schooner was to sail for San Francisco about nine. When I reached the dock she was free forward and was just casting off her stern line. My fat envelope was thrown by a strong hand and fell on board all right, and my victory was a safe thing. All in due time the ship reached San Francisco, but it was my complete report which made the stir and was telegraphed to the New York papers by Mr. Cash. He was in charge of the Pacific Bureau of the New York Herald at the time. When I returned to California by and by I went up to Sacramento and presented a bill for general correspondence at twenty dollars a week. It was paid. Then I presented a bill for special service on the Hornet matter of three columns of solid non-paray at a hundred dollars a column. The cashier didn't faint, but he came rather near it. He sent for the proprietors, and they came and never uttered a protest. They only laughed in their jolly fashion and said it was robbery, but no matter, it was a grand scoop. The bill, or my Hornet report, I didn't know which. Pay it! It's all right! The best men that ever owned a newspaper. The Hornet survivors reached the Sandwich Islands the fifteenth of June. They were mere skinny skeletons. Their clothes hung limp about them and fitted them no better than a flag fits the flagstaff in a calm. But they were well nursed in the hospital. The people of Honolulu kept them supplied with all the dainties they could need. They gathered strength fast, and were presently nearly as good as new. Within a fortnight the most of them took ship for San Francisco. That is, if my dates have not gone astray in my memory. I went in the same ship, a sailing vessel. Captain Mitchell of the Hornet was along, also the only passengers the Hornet had carried. These were two young men from Stamford, Connecticut, brothers, Samuel and Henry Ferguson. The Hornet was a clipper of the first class and a fast sailor. The young men's quarters were roomy and comfortable, and were well stocked with books, and also with canned meats and fruits to help out the ship fare with. And when the ship cleared from New York Harbour in the first week of January there was promise that she would make quick and pleasant work of the fourteen or fifteen thousand miles in front of her. As soon as the cold latitudes were left behind and the vessel entered summer weather, the voyage became a holiday picnic. The ship flew southward under a cloud of sail which needed no attention, no modifying or change of any kind for days together. The young men read, strolled the ample deck, rested and drowsed in the shade of the canvas, took their meals with the captain. And when the day was done they played dummy wist with him till bedtime. After the snow and ice and tempests of the Hornet the ship bowled northward into summer weather again and the trip was a picnic once more, until the early morning of the third of May. Computed position of the ship, one hundred and twelve degrees, ten minutes longitude, latitude two degrees above the equator, no wind, no sea, dead calm. Temperature of the atmosphere, tropical, blistering, unimaginable by one who has not been roasted in it. There was a cry of fire. An unfaithful sailor had disobeyed the rules and gone into the booby hatch with an open light to draw some varnish from a cask. The proper result followed, and the vessel's hours were numbered. There was not much time to spare, but the captain made the most of it. The three boats were launched, long boat and two quarter boats. At the time was very short and the hurry and excitement considerable is indicated by the fact that in launching the boats a hull was stove in the side of one of them by some sort of collision and an ore driven through the side of another. The captain's first care was to have four sick sailors brought up and placed on deck out of harm's way, among them a Portugese. This man had not done O'Day's work on the voyage, but had lain in his hammock four months nursing and abscess. When we were taking notes in the Honolulu Hospital, and a sailor told this to Mr. Burlingame, the third mate, who was lying near, raised his head with an effort, and in a weak voice made this correction with solemnity and feeling. Raising abscesses! He had a family of them. He'd done it to keep from standing his watch. Any provisions that lay handy were gathered up by the men and two passengers and brought and dumped on the deck where the Portugese lay. Then they ran for more. The sailor, who was telling this to Mr. Burlingame, added, We pulled together thirty-two days rations for the thirty-one men that way. The third mate lifted his head again and made another correction with bitterness. The Portugese ate twenty-two of them while he was soldiering there, and nobody noticing. Damned hound! The fire spread with great rapidity. The smoke and flame drove the men back, and they had to stop their incomplete work of fetching provisions and take to the boats with only ten days rations secured. Each boat had a compass, a quadrant, a copy of Boutage's navigator, and a nautical almanac, and the captain's and chief mate's boats had chronometers. There were thirty-one men all told. The captain took an account of stock with the following result. Four hams, nearly thirty pounds of salt-pork, half-box of raisins, one hundred pounds of bread, twelve two-pound cans of oysters, clams and assorted meats, a keg containing four pounds of butter, twelve gallons of water in a forty-gallon scuttle-butt, four one-gallon demi-johns full of water, three bottles of brandy, the property of passengers, some pipes, matches, and a hundred pounds of tobacco. No medicines. Of course the whole party had to go on short rations at once. The captain and the two passengers kept diaries. On our voyage to San Francisco we ran into a calm in the middle of the Pacific and did not move a rod during fourteen days. This gave me a chance to copy the diaries. Samuel Ferguson's is the fullest. I will draw upon it now. When the following paragraph was written the doomed ship was about one hundred and twenty days out from port, and all hands were putting in the lazy time about as usual as no one was forecasting disaster. Diary entry May two. Latitude one degree, twenty-eight minutes north. Longitude one hundred and eleven degrees, thirty-eight minutes west. Another hot and sluggish day. At one time, however, the clouds promised wind, and there came a slight breeze just enough to keep us going. The only thing to chronicle today is the quantities of fish about. Nine bonitos were caught this forenoon and some large albacore scene. After dinner the first make hooked a fellow which he could not hold, so he let the line go to the captain, who was on the bow. He, holding on, brought the fish too with a jerk, and snap went the line hook and all. We also saw a stern swimming lazily after us, an enormous shark, which must have been nine or ten feet long.  I suppose he had appeased his appetite on the heads and other remains of the bonitos we had thrown overboard. Next day's entry records the disaster. The three boats got away, retired to a short distance, and stopped. The two injured ones were leaking badly. Some of the men were kept busy bailing. Others patched the holes as well as they could. The captain, the two passengers, and eleven men were in the long boat, with a share of the provisions and water, and with no room to spare, for the boat was only twenty-one feet long, six wide, and three deep. The chief made, and eight men were in one of the small boats, the second made, and seven men in the other. The passengers had saved no clothing but what they had on, except their overcoats. The ship, clothed in flame and sending up a vast column of black smoke into the sky, made a grand picture in the solitudes of the sea, and hour after hour the outcast sat and watched it. Meantime the captain ciphered on the immensity of the distance that stretched between him and the nearest available land, and then scaled the rations down to meet the emergency. Half a biscuit for dinner, one biscuit and some canned meat for dinner, half a biscuit for tea, a few swallows of water for each meal, and so hunger began to gnaw while the ship was still burning. Diary entry May 4. The ship burned all night very brightly, and hopes are that some ship had seen the light and is bearing down upon us. None seen, however, this forenoon, so we have determined to go together north and a little west to some islands in eighteen degrees or nineteen degrees north latitude, and a hundred and fourteen degrees to a hundred and fifteen degrees west longitude, hoping in the meantime to be picked up by some ship. The ship sank suddenly at about five a.m. We find the sun very hot and scorching, but all try to keep out of it as much as we can. They did a quite natural thing now, waited several hours for that possible ship that might have seen the light to work her slow way to them through the nearly dead calm, then they gave it up and set about their plans. If you will look at the map, you will say that their course could be easily decided. Albemarle Island, Galapagos Group, lies straight eastward nearly a thousand miles. The islands referred to in the diary as some islands, Revilla Guigedo Islands, lie, as they think, in some widely uncertain region northward about one thousand miles, and westward one hundred or one hundred and fifty miles. Acapulco on the Mexican coast lies about northeast something short of one thousand miles. You will say random rocks in the ocean are not what is wanted. Let them strike for Acapulco on the solid continent. That does look like the rational course, but one presently guesses from the diaries that the thing would have been wholly irrational, indeed suicidal. If the boats struck for Albemarle they would be in the doldrums all the way, and that means a watery perdition with winds which are wholly crazy and blow from all points of the compass at once, and also perpendicularly. If the boats tried for Acapulco they would get out of the doldrums when half way there, in case they ever got half way, and then they would be in lamentable case, for there they would meet the northeast trades coming down in their teeth. And these boats were so rigged that they could not sail within eight points of the wind, so they wisely started northward with a slight slant to the west. They had but ten days short allowance of food, the longboat was towing the others, they could not depend on making any sort of definite progress in the doldrums, and they had four or five hundred miles of doldrums in front of them yet. They are the real equator, a tossing, roaring, rainy belt, ten or twelve hundred miles broad which girdles the globe. It rained hard the first night, and all got drenched, but they filled up their water-butt. The brothers were in the stern with the captain who steered. The quarters were cramped, no one got much sleep.  Stormy and squally the next morning, with drenching rains, a heavy and dangerous cobbling sea, one marvels how such boats could live in it. Is it called a feat of desperate daring when one man and a dog cross the Atlantic in a boat the size of a longboat? And indeed it is, but this longboat was overloaded with men and other plunder, and was only three feet deep. We naturally thought often of all at home, and were glad to remember that it was sacrament Sunday, and that prayers would go up from our friends for us, although they know not our peril. The captain got not even a cat-nap during the first three days and nights, but he got a few winks of sleep the fourth night, the worst sea yet. About ten at night the captain changed his course and headed east-northeast, hoping to make Clipperton rock. If he failed, no matter, he would be in a better position to make those other islands. I will mention here that he did not find that rock. On May 8 no wind all day, sun blistering hot, they take to the oars. Plenty of dolphins, but they couldn't catch any. I think we are all beginning to realize more and more the awful situation we are in. It often takes a ship a week to get through the doldrums, how much longer than such a craft as ours. We are so crowded that we cannot stretch ourselves out for a good sleep. But have to take it in any way we can get it. Of course this feature will grow more and more trying, but it will be human nature to cease to set it down. There will be five weeks of it yet. We must try to remember that for the diarist. It will make our beds the softer. May 9 the sun gives him a warning, looking with both eyes the horizon crossed thus. Henry keeps well, but broods over our troubles more than I wish he did. They caught two dolphins. They tasted well. The captain believed the compass out of the way, but the long invisible north star came out, a welcome sight, and endorsed the compass. May 10, latitude seven degrees, zero minutes, three seconds north, longitude one hundred and eleven degrees, thirty-two minutes west. So they have made about three hundred miles of northing in the six days since they left the region of the lost ship, drifting in calms all day, and baking hot, of course. I have been down there, and I remember that detail. Even as the captain says all romance has long since vanished, and I think the most of us are beginning to look the fact of our awful situation full in the face. We are making but little headway on our course. Bad news from the rearmost boat. The men are improvident. They have eaten up all of the canned meats brought from the ship, and are now growing discontented. Not so with the chief mate's people. They are evidently under the eye of a man. Under the date of May 11, standing still, or worse, we lost more last night than we made yesterday. In fact, they have lost three miles of the three hundred of northing they had so laboriously made.  What has he been living on for a week? Did the starving men feed him from their dire poverty? The second mate's boat out of water again, showing that they over-drink their allowance. The captain spoke pretty sharply to them. It is true. I have the remark in my old notebook. I got it of the third mate in the hospital at Honolulu, but there is not room for it here, and it is too combustible anyway. Besides, the third mate admired it, and what he admired, he was likely to enhance. They were still watching hopefully for ships. The captain was a thoughtful man, and probably did not disclose on them that that was substantially a waste of time. In this latitude the horizon is filled with little upright clouds that look very much like ships. Mr. Ferguson saved three bottles of brandy from his private stores when he left the ship, and the liquor came good in these days. The captain serves out two tablespoons of brandy and water, half-and-half, to our crew. He means the watch that is on duty.  The chief mate was an excellent officer, a self-possessed, resolute, fine, all-round man. The diarist makes the following note. There is character in it. I offered one bottle of brandy to the chief mate, but he declined, saying he could keep the after-boat quiet, and we had not enough for all. End of Part 1 of My Debut as a Literary Person and end of Section 14 of The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg and Other Stories by Mark Twain


Hi, this is Chichu again. Now what we're going to do in this video is frame Daredevil number one. I just recently got my hands on this and I probably haven't mentioned this before, but I'm a comic book collector. I actually did a stint as an independent publisher in the early 90s and I have been collecting comic books for about 25-plus years or so, about 25 years, actually a little bit more I think.  Sometimes I sell them and acquire more money and buy more comics, right? I sort of cycle through the things. And what I do have is a fair bit of frames. I got my hands on a fair bit of frames like this and really big as well. And what I've been doing is framing my comic books and just putting on the wall because I like looking at them. I like reading them. And you will see some of the comic books that I have and some of the comic books that I will be reading. I've put up a bunch of videos for that. And the first set of comics that we'll be reading is some anthologies, some collections from the Golden Age from 1945, 52 and 58. And we're going to read three anthologies from the early 80s up to 1990. But for now, what I'm going to do is I'm going to be reframing some comics. I'm going to be taking some comics out and putting some new comics in. And I got the inspiration for that because I got my hands on the Stair Devil. So what we're going to do right now is take this Stair Devil, get it ready and frame it here. And this one here is showcase number 16. It's the first silver age appearance of the Spectre. It's one of the first comics that I did frame. I think it's the first comic that I've free for some reason. And what we're going to do is just take this out and put Stair Devil in it. And I'm going to do this to a few other comics as well, some of the frames I have as well. And I might show you those ones just to see how this video turns out. Okay. So what we're going to do first of all is take this guy out. I'm going to put the Daredevil on the side there. I'm going to put the Daredevil in mylar before we put in here without a backing board. And for your collectors out there, if you want to know what great this is, there's a tear right there. There's a top of it, right? You don't notice it in first glance. That's one reason I did buy this. It was more affordable than more expensive ones. But it's in pretty good shape. It's a little tan. It's a little yellowing. But the corners are not bad. It's got a nice spine to it. And the bottom is pretty good, right? So the only thing that's really hurting this comic is this tear right there and the tanning. But I like it. This is great coffee. It's the best coffee I have. And I want to look at it on the wall. So we're just going to put it in the frame. Okay. So what we're going to do is just put this on the side. And first order of business is to take this guy out. Okay. So I'm going to flip this. That's going to be the top. Now what I've done is put some heavy duty staples here. And I got some tools that I used last time to pull these things out. So I'm going to bring these guys out and take this out. Take this guy out. Just to hold the cardboard behind it. And these frames, I was lucky enough to get my hands on a bunch of these frames that someone I knew was getting rid of. They just asked me if I wanted it. And I was like, yeah, because they were doing a movement. Well, they are done the movement. They're just trying to make space. And they didn't have time to store these things. So what I'm doing right now, these little metal things here, if you can see them. I'm just pulling these back. And those hold the mat, I guess. That's what we call this. Or that's what they call it. I'm not an expert at this, obviously. A little exacto knife. Let's see if we can pull this out. It's taped on at the back. So it's in a good, sorry about the rough noise that it's on. And that's okay. And here's our first Silver Age Appearance of the Spectre. Okay. Showcase number 60. And I'm going to take this, and this guy's in, it's not in bad shape actually. It's probably very fine. It's very fine minus, fine plus somewhere in there. So I'm going to put this away. Now I'm going to put this aside right now because I don't want this thing getting wrecked. It is, I should have sleep that good. I do want to show you guys what I do here. So I'm going to move this over. So I got myself, and I'm just going to make sure this is going to fit, and it is. I got some Silver Age boards. I wasn't initially going to put a board behind it, but since I've got packing tape on there, I think it's a good idea. I don't want to stress out the comic. I'm just going to make sure this is a good size that it fits. I'm going to fit it onto the Mylar like this, right? It actually makes it easier to go to Mylar, so it's not a bad idea to do this. What we're going to do is take this guy out. And I'll show you guys what this thing was like for those of you. It's one of the best investments you could have made in the last few decades, right? So the board for this might as well use a fresh board, right? If this is going to be too tight, then we'll do it without the board. Still tight. So I'm just going to, when I do this, what I end up doing, I try to level it off at the bottom and make sure the tops, just the corners inside the Mylar, right? I like to give these a little bit more protection. So I'm just going to tap these. Brings it down, and it looks pretty good right now. Very centered. Pretty centered anyway. So I'm going to put this thing on the side, bring back our frame. Like this guy, I got to center this.  Take measure. I just want to make sure this thing's sitting okay. It's about two and a quarter, a little bit more, and that's about two and a quarter, a little bit more. And one sixteenth more. Turn one sixteenth more. Yep, that's pretty good. It's fine. Let's just measure the column as well. Mylar is a little bit more at the top, so that's about three quarters of an inch. So that's good. I'm going to take this out. Now what I do need to do is clean the glass here. So not a professional, because obviously, right? I just want to make a wall that looks pretty. And this guy I'm just going to press down a little bit without my finger, so I don't leave fingerprints on there. Look this around. Maybe it's a little tough. So this thing's in there right now. I'm going to bend tops of these down, just so it holds them. I'm going to flip this thing around nicely centered. And you can tell there was another picture behind these, but I didn't like that. Back again, it goes. It's sitting nice. Reflection, so we're just not showing as well. There we go. It's a little bit closer. You're seeing the reflections in the back. So we're going to pull this back. Pull all these guys back. Now what I have is a nice little stapler gun. So this is going to sound a little short, but that's pretty. A little specks in there and stuff, but that's okay. I can live with it.


What's up everybody Jason here from jazby's case breaks calm shells in 1819 pinning revolution basketball hobby two box break Random teams number one just sold out So you get two random teams or sorry not to run since you get a random team in the NBA As you can see number two has already been posted. This is break number one You get 30 spots all-carts shipped to the team you get randomized and There you go guys good luck of course then we do a fillers all the time But We're pretty close on that and we've done so many pick your teams I think somebody will go ahead and grab those two teams right away. So do not need to worry But not by the box though. Oh that was sorry. I read the wrong note. We only do fillers for breaks Not by the box. I didn't continue reading after I read the To fill an X amount Roll the dice and we got a two and a three five times One two three four Two down a Christopher Three Lakers down with your line of magic To the Lakers Steve with the Suns David with the T was Nick with the bulls Christopher with the thunder So man with the Hornets bill with the heats Cory with the Wizards Christopher with the Clippers tower with the Nets Christopher the Grizzlies Juan with the Knicks 76ers from Matthew Dylan with the Bucks Thomas are you have the Mavericks? Christopher the Kings Cory with the cows Christopher with the Jazz so many with the Celtics Matthew the Raptors Christopher the Blazers two of the Pacers Ryan with the wars Christopher the Pelicans Time with the Pistons so many with the Nuggets Christopher with the Rockets and spurs one with the Hawks and Christopher with your London matches Robins heroes on the challenge All right, I'm assuming no trades in right so try when I close All right first case guys, so we have at least four breaks words of this stuff eight boxes per case Just depends the silver back on Sundays. I'm here from two to ten But Sunday's Mondays I tend to stay after ten o'clock to almost midnight sometimes after later till one So just depends how busy I am If it dies down after like ten o'clock around 11 ish, then I try to push breaks if they don't feel then Hey, I'm back tomorrow at two o'clock and we do it all over again So it just depends on how busy we get I'm here to at least handle every every Sunday Monday, but I Always stay an extra couple hours depending how busy we are All right, so pretend either a break each. This is one two three and four I roll a five or six would just re-roll it and see what number we get three One two three That's good I I I I I I Good luck us you got liftoff Dennis Smith jr. You got a yellow the sunburst Shockwave Lebron James And Jerome Robinson autograph for the Clippers Jason Allen Clippers is going to Christopher Lonnie Walker Jaren Jackson Oh Be same nuggets and seven. Hey man, that could happen. I mean, although I do want to see Lakers and Clippers I don't mind the nuggets upsetting and coming back and being the Clippers Our next box Marvin Bagley Kevin Knox He debates Don the Mitchell Shockwave No Carter jr We got a supernova Lebron James and cat carl Anthony Towns. This must be numbered I believe Or no, it's just cubic. Oh, yeah numbered to 50 And wow the Andre 8 and that's not bad Phoenix Suns going to Steve So All right, so the Andre 8 in auto and Jerome Robinson So I appreciate you guys number two is in the store. Remember six boxes left So two three and four can happen here. Jasper's case race calm chase look at answers tray young rookies. Appreciate it