MARK TWAIN'S TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS.

Westport Times, Volume V, Issue 818, 30 May 1871, Page 3

MARK TWAIN'S TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS.

I arrived in New York n few days ago, and instinctively took rooms at the Astor House. To be sure, I had no money to pay for them ; but why think of pay if we are only good ? I have always made it a rule to have the best of everything, even if I am obliged to get trusted for it. This sterling maxim was instilled into my mind by a kind father; and wno shall say that grey-haired man is not preud of his orphan boy ? But tke times are so hard now that I find it very difficult to make both ends meet and lay up money beside. I had not been at the Astor House more than one day when the clerk brought me my bill. " Is it customary," said I, "to pay by the day ■?" "It is with men of your stamp," he replied. " What kind of a stamp do you take me for ?" " You look like a two cent stamp," he replied, " Mighty thin. If any one should .wet it once, you'd stick like thunder. But we don't propose to try it. You either pay this bill, or get out! Have you the money ?" "My estimable young friend," I replied, " you have probably heard of Dr. Benjamin Franklin, long since deceased. That eminent physician was at one time in the proverb business, and did a good thing. He said among other things, that' time is money.' Now, I haven't got any money, but as regards time, I am in affluent circumstances, and if you receipt this bill I will give you a cheque for as much time as you think equivalent, and throw you in a couple of hours for your trouble." He made no reply, but from the fact of a porter coming up immediately thereafter, removing my trunk to the sidewalk, and hustling me out after it, I inferred that I wasn"% considered a financial success. " Say, Mister," said a small boy with a very long coat, and a cap with considerable visor, •' don't tear yourself away." " Ob, you let him alone," said another, " hia mother sent for him." Oh, world, thou art cruel. I immediately called a hackman, and told him to take me to a cheap but respectable hotel." "And the cheaper it is the more respectable I shall consider it," I added. He drove me to the Excelsior House, and I told him I was under a great obligation to him, and if at any time I could do him a favour, I should feel grieved if he didn't speak to me about it, for my proud spirit spurns an obligation. " If you don't fork over that dollar," said he, " there'll be a funeral in your family, and it won't be your wife, nor none of your children!"' "But I'm busted. If meeting-houses were selling a two cents, I couldn't buy the handle of a contribution-box." He swore at me awfully, and said he would take it out of my trunk—so he bursted it open. But the contents of that trunk are far from valuable, for 1 carry it filled with sawdust. It looks just as respectable, and in an emergency of this kind is valuable. I will not say this hackman looked daggers at me. He looked a whole arsenal, with a backroom full of bayonets ; and as he mounted his box and drove away the air was fully blue with oaths. He got off string after string without making a single mistake, and he must have had the devil's dictionary at his tongue's end. It fairly curdled my blood to hear him swear such awful swears. I afterwards heard that this hackman was always very wicked, and would not go to Sunday school when he was a little boy ; but when his mother put on his cap with a tassel on it, and gave him a cent to put in the contribution box, he would go off with the other bad boys and pitch pennies. Is it any wonder that he is a great horrid thing, and uses oaths when he swears ?