A TREBLY TRUTHFUL STORY.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 6, Issue 1740, 19 July 1884, Page 2

A TREBLY TRUTHFUL STORY.

Mark Twain and, Petroleum V. Naseby, ' Bays Donn Piatt, dined with Eli Perkins at the latter's residence in New York. The conversation at that dinner I shall never forget, Tbe tqlea, told and thereinjnjgoenoes brought out at that • dinner woqld fijl a small book'. After the last course, and after the ladies had withdrawn the conversation turned upon horses. Finally Mr Twain ■' laid down his and asked Perkins and Fasby if they had ever heard of a fast horse be (Mark) used to own when in Navads, 'I think not, said Naseby. ' We.U gentlemen,* continued Mr Twain-laa he blew a smokering and watched it- 1 that was a fast bJdB, But he was so tough bitted that I couiSp guide him with a bit at all,' ■' How did you guide him?' < Well -gentlemen,- I had to guide him with electricity, I had to have. •' wire lines and bad tq- fceep a battery jij tba wagon, at the time In order to Stop -him/v '" ' Why'didn't you stop him by holloring outV ■wkora. ?' asked Eli. ' stop him by hollorin' who-al' exclaimed Mr Twain. 'Why I could not hoik loud enough to make that horse hear me, He travelled bo fast that no sound ever reaohed him from behind. He ■'' was taster than the sound sir. Hollor out whoa and he would be in the next town before the sound of your yoice could reach the dash board. Travel fast? I should ray he could. Why I qnce started from Virginia City for Meadow creek right in front of qno of the most dreadful rainstorms we ever had on the Pacific Coast, Wind and rain? Why. the wind blow eighty miles an bout and the ram fell in sheets. J drove right before that storm for three hours-=just on the edge of that hurricane and rain for forty miles,' 'Didn't you get dronohed?' 'Drenchedl No sir. Why, I tell you I drove right in the front of that storm, I could lean forward, and Jet the sun shine on me! or I could lean backward and feel ram and catoh hailstones, When the hurricane slaok&ip ' the horse slaoked up, too, and also wwrit blow faster I just said ' g-lk' to the : horse and touched tho battery, and away he. went. Now I don't want to lio about my borso, Mr Perkins, and I don't ask you to. believe what I say, but I tell you truthfully that when I got to Meadow Creek my linen duster was asf V dry as powder. ■ Not a drop of water on the ?*"' wagon seat either while the wagon box was '' level full of haifstoneg.jnd vjater, or 1)4 \ a—~ 'ljook "here 1 gentlemen' interrupted Mr Naseby, 'speaking;of the truth did you ever bear about my striking that man in Toledo,' Mark said he had never heard about it, 'Well it was this way: There was a man there-one of those wordly sceptical fellows, who questioned my veracity one day. He said he had doubts about one of my cross-road incidents. He didn't say it publicly but privately. I'm sorry now for the sake of his wife and family that he said jt atall-and s,orry for', " the tyan too, for he wasn't prepared to go. If he'd been a Christian }l would have bee> different. I say I didn't want to strjke tin's man, beoause it's a bad habit to get intathis making a human chaos out of a ma,n, But he questioned my veracity, a,t4 I struck him once—just onqo, I remember he was putting down a carpet at the time, and had hip mouth full of carpet taoks, bnt a man oan't stop to discount carpet tacks in a man's, mouth when he questions your .veracity can he? I never do. I Bimply struck the blow','' 'Did "it hurt'the'man : ""''" ,! very much," asked Eli, «I don't think it did. It was too sudden, The. bystanders said ifl was going to strike a second Hfer> ; they >anted to move out of the {£ss' Now I don't want you to believe me, --. and I don't expeot yon will, but, to tell T* yon the honest' truth. Mr Perkins, I squashed that man right down into a door ; mat, and his own wife, who was taoking ■ down the edge of the carpet at the time, - • came right along and took him for a guttapercha rua, and actually tacked him down in front of the door, Poor woman, she never knew she was tacking down herown husband. What became of the tacks in his mouth? you ask, Well, next day the boys pulled them out of the bottoms of his overshoes, and-^—' ' Gentlemen Eli, 'it does me good to hear snch truths. I believe every word you say, and I feel th.it I ought to exchange truths with you. Now, did you/ everhearhow.lwenttoaprayernifcetingat ■ Npw London, Connecticut, in t rain stbrth I'J : They sa|d they had not, ' Well, gentlemefa,! ■ ' .■ said Eli, 1 . ' one day I started forW'NeW : London' prayer-meeting on horseback', ; When I got about half way there, thero v came a fearful thunder storm. The wind " A blew a hurricane, the rain fell in torrents, ' the lightening gleamed through-the sky, and I wont'and crouched behind a jbarn. But pretty Bgon the lightening struck the barn'; .. ' knonked' it into a thousand splinters, and sent my horse,whirljng over into a nighboring corn patch.' [ 'Did it Kill you",Mj Perkins?' asked Mr Twain, the tears rd| : down his cheeks. 'No, itdid'ntßnlj! ',, he said,' but I was a good deal discouraged'.' / 'Well, what did you do Mr Perkina?' - * 'What did I do? Well,, gentlemen, toM ■■ >; the honest Connecticut truth, I went right out into, the pasttre, .took off my ooat, ' htrmnedup my bare baok\ and took eleveil ohips of lightning right on my bare drew the electricity all out of the sky, ! and then got on to my horse and rode into New London in time to lead at the -evening prayer-meeting,' Arise and sing!