HOW MARK TWAIN "SOLD" IN NEWARK.

Inangahua Times, Volume IV, Issue 60, 27 August 1877, Page 2

HOW MARK TWAIN "SOLD" IN NEWARK.

I was profoundly moved. I said, "My l son, bring the old p^rty round. I have got some jokes in that lecture that will 1 make him laugh if there is any laugh in * him ; and, if they miss fire, I have got ', some others that will make him cry or kill him, one or the other." Then the young man blessed me, and wept on my 1 neck and wen,t after, his uncle. H placed { him in fuJl v.-ie.w, in the second row of j benches, that niiiht, and began on him. I f tried lum with nv'd jokes, tben with . severe ones \ I dos.ed him with bad jokes, ' and riddled him with good obos ; I fired ' old stale jokes into, him. and peppered • Wm fore and aft with ved.-hot new ones ; I warmed up to my work, and assaulted J him right and left, in front and behind ; I fumed and sweated and charged, and ranted till I was hoarse and sick, and frantic and furious. But I never moved, [ bim onee — I never startled a smile or a i tear, noevr a ghost of a smile, and a susi picion of moisture, I was astounded. I ' closed the lecture at last with one i despairing shriek, with one wild burst of humor, and hurled a joke of supernatural atrocity full at him. Then I sat down , bewildered and exhausted. The president of thp society came up and bathed my i head with cold water, and said, *f What i ma,de you par,ry on so, towards the last P" I said^ " 1 was trying to make that confounded old fool, in tha. second row laugh." And he saijd, " Well you are wasting ypjar time, because he is. deaf . and dumb* an,d as blind as a mple P" Now w;as that any way for that old man's nephew to, impose on, a stranger and an orphan like me ?. I ask. you, as a m*" l an^ brother, i£ that waa any wsy for hjni to, doR