Rock, in the summer
of 1621, and founded Chicago, will recall this pond distinctly.
Cotton Mather is buried on its far bank, and from there it is just
ten minutes by trolley to Salem, Massachusetts. It is stated also
in this story that the prairies begin a matter of thirty-odd miles
from Chicago, and that to reach them one must first traverse a
"perfect no man's land." Englewood and South Chicago papers please
copy.
Chapter XIX
Venice and the Venisons
Getting back again to guides, I am reminded that our acquaintanceship
with the second member of the Mark Twain brotherhood was staged
in Paris. This gentleman wished himself on us one afternoon at
the Hotel des Invalides. We did not engage him; he engaged us,
doing the trick with such finesse and skill that before we realized
it we had been retained to accompany him to various points of
interest in and round Paris. However, we remained under his control
one day only. At nightfall we wrested ourselves free and fled
under cover of darkness to German soil, where we were comparatively
safe.
I never knew a man who advanced so rapidly in a military way as
he did during the course of that one day. Our own national guard
could not hold a candle to him. He started out at ten A.M. by
being an officer of volunteers in the Franco-Prussian War; but
every time he slipped away and took a nip out of his private
bottle, which was often, he advanced in rank automatically. Before
the dusk of evening came he was a corps commander, who had been
ennobled on the field of battle by the hand of Napoleon the Third.
He took us to Versailles. We did not particularly care to go to
Versailles that day, because it was raining; but he insisted and
we went. In spite of the drizzle we might have enjoyed that
wonderful place had he not been constantly at our elbows, gabbling
away steadily except when he excused himself for a moment and
stepped behind a tree, to emerge a moment later wiping his mouth
on his sleeve. Then he would return to us, with an added gimpiness
in his elderly legs, an increased expansion of the chest inside
his tight and shiny frock coat, and a fresh freight of richness
on his breath, to report another deserved promotion.
After he had eaten luncheon - all except such portions of it as he
spilled on himself - the colonel grew confidential and chummy. He
tried to tell me an off-color story and forgot the point of it,
if indeed it had any point. He began humming the Marseillaise
hymn, but broke off to say he expected to live to see the day when
a column of French troops, singing that air, would march up Unter
den Linden to stack their arms in the halls of the Kaiser's palace.
I did not take issue with him. Every man is entitled to his
own wishes in those matters. But later on, when I had seen
something of the Kaiser's standing army, I thought to myself that
when the French troops did march up Unter den Linden they would
find it tolerably rough sledding, and if there was any singing
done a good many of them probably would not be able to join in the
last verse.
Immediately following this, our conductor confided to me that he
had once had the honor of serving Mr. Clemens, whom he referred
to as Mick Twine. He told me things about Mr. Clemens of which I
had never heard. I do not think Mr. Clemens ever heard of them
either. Then the brigadier - it was now after three o'clock, and
between three and three-thirty he was a brigadier - drew my arm
within his.
"I, too, am an author," he stated. "It is not generally known,
but I have written much. I wrote a book of which you may have
heard - 'The Wandering Jew.'" And he tapped himself on the bosom
proudly.
I said I had somehow contracted a notion that a party named Sue
- Eugene Sue - had something to do with writing the work of that
name.
"Ah, but you are right there, my friend," he said. "Sue wrote
'The Wandering Jew' the first time - as a novel, merely; but I wrote
him much better - as a satire on the anti-Semitic movement."
I surrendered without offering to strike another blow and from
that time on he had his own way with us. The day, as I was pleased
to note at the time, had begun mercifully to draw to a close; we
were driving back to Paris, and he, sitting on the front seat, had
just attained the highest post in the army under the regime of the
last Empire, when he said:
"Behold, m'sieur! We are now approaching a wine shop on the left.
You were most gracious and kind in the matter of luncheon. Kindly
permit me to do the honors now. It is a very good wine shop - I
know it well. Shall we stop for a glass together, eh?"
It was the first time since we landed at Calais that a native-born
person had offered to buy anything, and, being ever desirous to
assist in the celebration of any truly notable occasion, I
accepted and the car was stopped. We were at the portal of the
wine shop, when he plucked at my sleeve, offering another suggestion:
"The chauffeur now - he is a worthy fellow, that chauffeur. Shall
we not invite the chauffeur to join us?"
I was agreeable to that, too. So he called the chauffeur and the
chauffeur disentangled his whiskers from the steering gear and
came and joined us.
