Excuse these
tears. For sixteen weary years I have yearned for a moment like this,
and--"
Here his feelings were too much for him, and he swooned away. I pitied
this poor creature from the bottom of my heart. I was deeply moved.
I shed a few tears on him, and kissed him for his mother. I then took
what small change he had, and "shoved."
FIRST INTERVIEW WITH ARTEMUS WARD--[Written about 1870.]
I had never seen him before. He brought letters of introduction from
mutual friends in San Francisco, and by invitation I breakfasted with
him. It was almost religion, there in the silver-mines, to precede such
a meal with whisky cocktails. Artemus, with the true cosmopolitan
instinct, always deferred to the customs of the country he was in, and so
he ordered three of those abominations. Hingston was present. I said I
would rather not drink a whisky cocktail. I said it would go right to my
head, and confuse me so that I would be in a helpless tangle in ten
minutes. I did not want to act like a lunatic before strangers. But
Artemus gently insisted, and I drank the treasonable mixture under
protest, and felt all the time that I was doing a thing I might be sorry
for.
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