The American Claimant

M >> Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) >> The American Claimant


"This is a most extraordinary form of robbery, I never have heard of
anything like it. It's interesting."

"Yes, and so are the artists. They are perfectly honest men, and
sincere. And the old sailor-man is full of sound religion, and is as
devoted a student of the Bible and misquoter of it as you can find
anywhere. I don't know a better man or kinder hearted old soul than
Saltmarsh, although he does swear a little, sometimes."

"He seems to be perfect. I want to know him, Barrow."

"You'll have the chance. I guess I hear them coming, now. We'll draw
them out on their art, if you like."

The artists arrived and shook hands with great heartiness. The German
was forty and a little fleshy, with a shiny bald head and a kindly face
and deferential manner. Capt. Saltmarsh was sixty, tall, erect,
powerfully built, with coal-black hair and whiskers, and he had a well
tanned complexion, and a gait and countenance that were full of command,
confidence and decision. His horny hands and wrists were covered with
tattoo-marks, and when his lips parted, his teeth showed up white and
blemishless. His voice was the effortless deep bass of a church organ,
and would disturb the tranquility of a gas flame fifty yards away.

"They're wonderful pictures," said Barrow. "We've been examining them."

"It is very bleasant dot you like dem," said Handel, the German, greatly
pleased. "Und you, Herr Tracy, you haf peen bleased mit dem too,
alretty?"

"I can honestly say I have never seen anything just like them before."

"Schon!" cried the German, delighted. "You hear, Gaptain? Here is a
chentleman, yes, vot abbreviate unser aart."

The captain was charmed, and said:

"Well, sir, we're thankful for a compliment yet, though they're not as
scarce now as they used to be before we made a reputation."

"Getting the reputation is the up-hill time in most things, captain."

"It's so. It ain't enough to know how to reef a gasket, you got to make
the mate know you know it. That's reputation. The good word, said at
the right time, that's the word that makes us; and evil be to him that
evil thinks, as Isaiah says."

"It's very relevant, and hits the point exactly," said Tracy.

"Where did you study art, Captain?"

"I haven't studied; it's a natural gift."

"He is born mit dose cannon in him. He tondt haf to do noding, his
chenius do all de vork. Of he is asleep, and take a pencil in his hand,
out come a cannon. Py crashus, of he could do a clavier, of he could do
a guitar, of he could do a vashtub, it is a fortune, heiliger Yohanniss
it is yoost a fortune!"

"Well, it is an immense pity that the business is hindered and limited in
this unfortunate way."

The captain grew a trifle excited, himself, now:

"You've said it, Mr. Tracy!--Hindered? well, I should say so. Why, look
here. This fellow here, No. 11, he's a hackman,--a flourishing hackman,
I may say. He wants his hack in this picture. Wants it where the cannon
is. I got around that difficulty, by telling him the cannon's our
trademark, so to speak--proves that the picture's our work, and I was
afraid if we left it out people wouldn't know for certain if it was a
Saltmarsh--Handel--now you wouldn't yourself--"

"What, Captain? You wrong yourself, indeed you do. Anyone who has once
seen a genuine Saltmarsh-Handel is safe from imposture forever. Strip
it, flay it, skin it out of every detail but the bare color and
expression, and that man will still recognize it--still stop to
worship--"

"Oh, how it makes me feel to hear dose oxpressions!--"

--"still say to himself again as he had, said a hundred times before, the
art of the Saltmarsh-Handel is an art apart, there is nothing in the
heavens above or in the earth beneath that resembles it,--"

"Py chiminy, nur horen Sie einmal! In my life day haf I never heard so
brecious worts."

"So I talked him out of the hack, Mr. Tracy, and he let up on that, and
said put in a hearse, then--because he's chief mate of a hearse but don't
own it--stands a watch for wages, you know. But I can't do a hearse any
more than I can a hack; so here we are--becalmed, you see. And it's the
same with women and such. They come and they want a little johnry
picture--"

"It's the accessories that make it a 'genre?'"

"Yes--cannon, or cat, or any little thing like that, that you heave into
whoop up the effect. We could do a prodigious trade with the women if we
could foreground the things they like, but they don't give a damn for
artillery. Mine's the lack," continued the captain with a sigh, "Andy's
end of the business is all right I tell you he's an artist from way
back!"

"Yoost hear dot old man! He always talk 'poud me like dot," purred the
pleased German.

"Look at his work yourself! Fourteen portraits in a row. And no two of
them alike."

"Now that you speak of it, it is true; I hadn't noticed it before. It is
very remarkable. Unique, I suppose."

"I should say so. That's the very thing about Andy--he discriminates.
Discrimination's the thief of time--forty-ninth Psalm; but that ain't any
matter, it's the honest thing, and it pays in the end."

"Yes, he certainly is great in that feature, one is obliged to admit it;
but--now mind, I'm not really criticising--don't you think he is just a
trifle overstrong in technique?"

The captain's face was knocked expressionless by this remark. It
remained quite vacant while he muttered to himself--"Technique--
technique--polytechnique--pyro-technique; that's it, likely--fireworks too
much color." Then he spoke up with serenity and confidence, and said:

"Well, yes, he does pile it on pretty loud; but they all like it, you
know--fact is, it's the life of the business. Take that No. 9, there,
Evans the butcher. He drops into the stoodio as sober-colored as
anything you ever see: now look at him. You can't tell him from scarlet
fever. Well, it pleases that butcher to death. I'm making a study of a
sausage-wreath to hang on the cannon, and I don't really reckon I can do
it right, but if I can, we can break the butcher."

"Unquestionably your confederate--I mean your--your fellow-craftsman--
is a great colorist--"

"Oh, danke schon!--"

--"in fact a quite extraordinary colorist; a colorist, I make bold to
say, without imitator here or abroad--and with a most bold and effective
touch, a touch like a battering ram; and a manner so peculiar and
romantic, and extraneous, and ad libitum, and heart-searching, that--
that--he--he is an impressionist, I presume?"

"No," said the captain simply, "he is a Presbyterian."

"It accounts for it all--all--there's something divine about his art,--
soulful, unsatisfactory, yearning, dim hearkening on the void horizon,
vague--murmuring to the spirit out of ultra-marine distances and
far-sounding cataclysms of uncreated space--oh, if he--if, he--has he
ever tried distemper?"

The captain answered up with energy:

"Not if he knows himself! But his dog has, and--"

"Oh, no, it vas not my dog."

"Why, you said it was your dog."

"Oh, no, gaptain, I--"

"It was a white dog, wasn't it, with his tail docked, and one ear gone,
and--"

"Dot's him, dot's him!--der fery dog. Wy, py Chorge, dot dog he would
eat baint yoost de same like--"

"Well, never mind that, now--'vast heaving--I never saw such a man. You
start him on that dog and he'll dispute a year. Blamed if I haven't seen
him keep it up a level two hours and a half."

"Why captain!" said Barrow. "I guess that must be hearsay."

"No, sir, no hearsay about it--he disputed with me."

"I don't see how you stood it."

"Oh, you've got to--if you run with Andy. But it's the only fault he's
got."

"Ain't you afraid of acquiring it?"

"Oh, no," said the captain, tranquilly, "no danger of that, I reckon."

The artists presently took their leave. Then Barrow put his hands on
Tracy's shoulders and said:

"Look me in the eye, my boy. Steady, steady. There--it's just as I
thought--hoped, anyway; you're all right, thank goodness. Nothing the
matter with your mind. But don't do that again--even for fun. It isn't
wise. They wouldn't have believed you if you'd been an earl's son.
Why, they couldn't--don't you know that? What ever possessed you to take
such a freak? But never mind about that; let's not talk of it. It was a
mistake; you see that yourself."

"Yes--it was a mistake."

"Well, just drop it out of your mind; it's no harm; we all make them.
Pull your courage together, and don't brood, and don't give up. I'm at
your back, and we'll pull through, don't you be afraid."

When he was gone, Barrow walked the floor a good while, uneasy in his
mind. He said to himself, "I'm troubled about him. He never would have
made a break like that if he hadn't been a little off his balance.
But I know what being out of work and no prospect ahead can do for a man.
First it knocks the pluck out of him and drags his pride in the dirt;
worry does the rest, and his mind gets shaky. I must talk to these
people. No--if there's any humanity in them--and there is, at bottom--
they'll be easier on him if they think his troubles have disturbed his
reason. But I've got to find him some work; work's the only medicine for
his disease. Poor devil! away off here, and not a friend."




CHAPTER XVII

The moment Tracy was alone his spirits vanished away, and all the misery
of his situation was manifest to him. To be moneyless and an object of
the chairmaker's charity--this was bad enough, but his folly in
proclaiming himself an earl's son to that scoffing and unbelieving crew,
and, on top of that, the humiliating result--the recollection of these
things was a sharper torture still. He made up his mind that he would
never play earl's son again before a doubtful audience.

His father's answer was a blow he could not understand. At times he
thought his father imagined he could get work to do in America without
any trouble, and was minded to let him try it and cure himself of his
radicalism by hard, cold, disenchanting experience. That seemed the most
plausible theory, yet he could not content himself with it. A theory
that pleased him better was, that this cablegram would be followed by
another, of a gentler sort, requiring him to come home. Should he write
and strike his flag, and ask for a ticket home? Oh, no, that he couldn't
ever do. At least, not yet. That cablegram would come, it certainly
would. So he went from one telegraph office to another every day for
nearly a week, and asked if there was a cablegram for Howard Tracy.
No, there wasn't any. So they answered him at first. Later, they said
it before he had a chance to ask. Later still they merely shook their
heads impatiently as soon as he came in sight. After that he was ashamed
to go any more.

He was down in the lowest depths of despair, now; for the harder Barrow
tried to find work for him the more hopeless the possibilities seemed to
grow. At last he said to Barrow:

"Look here. I want to make a confession. I have got down, now, to where
I am not only willing to acknowledge to myself that I am a shabby
creature and full of false pride, but am willing to acknowledge it to
you. Well, I've been allowing you to wear yourself out hunting for work
for me when there's been a chance open to me all the time. Forgive my
pride--what was left of it. It is all gone, now, and I've come to
confess that if those ghastly artists want another confederate, I'm their
man--for at last I am dead to shame."

"No? Really, can you paint?"

"Not as badly as they. No, I don't claim that, for I am not a genius;
in fact, I am a very indifferent amateur, a slouchy dabster, a mere
artistic sarcasm; but drunk or asleep I can beat those buccaneers."

"Shake! I want to shout! Oh, I tell you, I am immensely delighted and
relieved. Oh, just to work--that is life! No matter what the work is--
that's of no consequence. Just work itself is bliss when a man's been
starving for it. I've been there! Come right along; we'll hunt the old
boys up. Don't you feel good? I tell you I do."

The freebooters were not at home. But their "works" were, displayed in
profusion all about the little ratty studio. Cannon to the right of
them, cannon to the left of them, cannon in front--it was Balaclava come
again.

"Here's the uncontented hackman, Tracy. Buckle to--deepen the sea-green
to turf, turn the ship into a hearse. Let the boys have a taste of your
quality."

The artists arrived just as the last touch was put on. They stood
transfixed with admiration.

"My souls but she's a stunner, that hearse! The hackman will just go all
to pieces when he sees that won't he Andy?"

"Oh, it is sphlennid, sphlennid! Herr Tracy, why haf you not said you
vas a so sublime aartist? Lob' Gott, of you had lif'd in Paris you would
be a Pree de Rome, dot's votes de matter!"

The arrangements were soon made. Tracy was taken into full and equal
partnership, and he went straight to work, with dash and energy, to
reconstructing gems of art whose accessories had failed to satisfy.
Under his hand, on that and succeeding days, artillery disappeared and
the emblems of peace and commerce took its place--cats, hacks, sausages,
tugs, fire engines, pianos, guitars, rocks, gardens, flower-pots,
landscapes--whatever was wanted, he flung it in; and the more out of
place and absurd the required object was, the more joy he got out of
fabricating it. The pirates were delighted, the customers applauded, the
sex began to flock in, great was the prosperity of the firm. Tracy was
obliged to confess to himself that there was something about work,--even
such grotesque and humble work as this--which most pleasantly satisfied a
something in his nature which had never been satisfied before, and also
gave him a strange new dignity in his own private view of himself.

.......................

The Unqualified Member from Cherokee Strip was in a state of deep
dejection. For a good while, now, he had been leading a sort of life
which was calculated to kill; for it had consisted in regularly
alternating days of brilliant hope and black disappointment. The
brilliant hopes were created by the magician Sellers, and they always
promised that now he had got the trick, sure, and would effectively
influence that materialized cowboy to call at the Towers before night.
The black disappointments consisted in the persistent and monotonous
failure of these prophecies.

At the date which this history has now reached, Sellers was appalled to
find that the usual remedy was inoperative, and that Hawkins's low
spirits refused absolutely to lift. Something must be done, he
reflected; it was heart-breaking, this woe, this smileless misery,
this dull despair that looked out from his poor friend's face. Yes, he
must be cheered up. He mused a while, then he saw his way. He said in
his most conspicuously casual vein:

"Er--uh--by the way, Hawkins, we are feeling disappointed about this
thing--the way the materializee is acting, I mean--we are disappointed;
you concede that?"

"Concede it? Why, yes, if you like the term."

"Very well; so far, so good. Now for the basis of the feeling. It is
not that your heart, your affections are concerned; that is to say, it is
not that you want the materializee Itself. You concede that?"

"Yes, I concede that, too--cordially."

"Very well, again; we are making progress. To sum up: The feeling, it is
conceded, is not engendered by the mere conduct of the materializee; it
is conceded that it does not arise from any pang which the personality of
the materializee could assuage. Now then," said the earl, with the light
of triumph in his eye, "the inexorable logic of the situation narrows us
down to this: our feeling has its source in the money-loss involved.
Come--isn't that so?"

"Goodness knows I concede that, with all my heart."

"Very well. When you've found out the source of a disease, you've also
found out what remedy is required--just as in this case. In this case
money is required. And only money."

The old, old seduction was in that airy, confident tone and those
significant words--usually called pregnant words in books. The old
answering signs of faith and hope showed up in Hawkins's countenance,
and he said:

"Only money? Do you mean that you know a way to--"

"Washington, have you the impression that I have no resources but those
I allow the public and my intimate friends to know about?"

"Well, I--er--"

"Is it likely, do you think, that a man moved by nature and taught by
experience to keep his affairs to himself and a cautious and reluctant
tongue in his head, wouldn't be thoughtful enough to keep a few resources
in reserve for a rainy day, when he's got as many as I have to select
from?"

"Oh, you make me feel so much better already, Colonel!"

"Have you ever been in my laboratory?"

"Why, no."

"That's it. You see you didn't even know that I had one. Come along.
I've got a little trick there that I want to show you. I've kept it
perfectly quiet, not fifty people know anything about it. But that's my
way, always been my way. Wait till you're ready, that's the idea; and
when you're ready, zzip!--let her go!"

"Well, Colonel, I've never seen a man that I've had such unbounded
confidence in as you. When you say a thing right out, I always feel as
if that ends it; as if that is evidence, and proof, and everything else."

The old earl was profoundly pleased and touched.

"I'm glad you believe in me, Washington; not everybody is so just."

"I always have believed in you; and I always shall as long as I live."

"Thank you, my boy. You shan't repent it. And you can't." Arrived in
the "laboratory," the earl continued, "Now, cast your eye around this
room--what do you see? Apparently a junk-shop; apparently a hospital
connected with a patent office--in reality, the mines of Golconda in
disguise! Look at that thing there. Now what would you take that thing
to be?"

"I don't believe I could ever imagine."

"Of course you couldn't. It's my grand adaptation of the phonograph to
the marine service. You store up profanity in it for use at sea.
You know that sailors don't fly around worth a cent unless you swear
at them--so the mate that can do the best job of swearing is the most
valuable man. In great emergencies his talent saves the ship. But a
ship is a large thing, and he can't be everywhere at once; so there have
been times when one mate has lost a ship which could have been saved if
they had had a hundred. Prodigious storms, you know. Well, a ship can't
afford a hundred mates; but she can afford a hundred Cursing Phonographs,
and distribute them all over the vessel--and there, you see, she's armed
at every point. Imagine a big storm, and a hundred of my machines all
cursing away at once--splendid spectacle, splendid!--you couldn't hear
yourself think. Ship goes through that storm perfectly serene--she's
just as safe as she'd be on shore."

"It's a wonderful idea. How do you prepare the thing?"

"Load it--simply load it."

"How?"

"Why you just stand over it and swear into it."

"That loads it, does it?"

"Yes--because every word it collars, it keeps--keeps it forever. Never
wears out. Any time you turn the crank, out it'll come. In times of
great peril, you can reverse it, and it'll swear backwards. That makes a
sailor hump himself!"

"O, I see. Who loads them?--the mate?"

"Yes, if he chooses. Or I'll furnish them already loaded. I can hire an
expert for $75 a month who will load a hundred and fifty phonographs in
150 hours, and do it easy. And an expert can furnish a stronger article,
of course, than the mere average uncultivated mate could. Then you see,
all the ships of the world will buy them ready loaded--for I shall have
them loaded in any language a customer wants. Hawkins, it will work the
grandest moral reform of the 19th century. Five years from now, all the
swearing will be done by machinery--you won't ever hear a profane word
come from human lips on a ship. Millions of dollars have been spent by
the churches, in the effort to abolish profanity in the commercial
marine. Think of it--my name will live forever in the affections of good
men as the man, who, solitary and alone, accomplished this noble and
elevating reform."

"O, it is grand and beneficent and beautiful. How did you ever come to
think of it? You have a wonderful mind. How did you say you loaded the
machine?"

"O, it's no trouble--perfectly simple. If you want to load it up loud and
strong, you stand right over it and shout. But if you leave it open and
all set, it'll eavesdrop, so to speak--that is to say, it will load
itself up with any sounds that are made within six feet of it. Now I'll
show you how it works. I had an expert come and load this one up
yesterday. Hello, it's been left open--it's too bad--still I reckon it
hasn't had much chance to collect irrelevant stuff. All you do is to
press this button in the floor--so."

The phonograph began to sing in a plaintive voice:

There is a boarding-house, far far away,
Where they have ham and eggs, 3 times a day.

"Hang it, that ain't it. Somebody's been singing around here."

The plaintive song began again, mingled with a low, gradually rising wail
of cats slowly warming up toward a fight;

O, how the boarders yell,
When they hear that dinner bell
They give that landlord--

(momentary outburst of terrific catfight which drowns out one word.)

Three times a day.

(Renewal of furious catfight for a moment. The plaintive voice on a high
fierce key, "Scat, you devils"--and a racket as of flying missiles.)

"Well, never mind--let it go. I've got some sailor-profanity down in
there somewhere, if I could get to it. But it isn't any matter; you see
how the machine works."

Hawkins responded with enthusiasm:

"O, it works admirably! I know there's a hundred fortunes in it."

"And mind, the Hawkins family get their share, Washington."

"O, thanks, thanks; you are just as generous as ever. Ah, it's the
grandest invention of the age!"

"Ah, well; we live in wonderful times. The elements are crowded full of
beneficent forces--always have been--and ours is the first generation to
turn them to account and make them work for us. Why Hawkins, everything
is useful--nothing ought ever to be wasted. Now look at sewer gas, for
instance. Sewer gas has always been wasted, heretofore; nobody tried to
save up sewer-gas--you can't name me a man. Ain't that so? you know
perfectly well it's so."

"Yes it is so--but I never--er--I don't quite see why a body--"

"Should want to save it up? Well, I'll tell you. Do you see this little
invention here?--it's a decomposer--I call it a decomposer. I give you
my word of honor that if you show me a house that produces a given
quantity of sewer-gas in a day, I'll engage to set up my decomposer there
and make that house produce a hundred times that quantity of sewer-gas in
less than half an hour."

"Dear me, but why should you want to?"

"Want to? Listen, and you'll see. My boy, for illuminating purposes
and economy combined, there's nothing in the world that begins with
sewer-gas. And really, it don't cost a cent. You put in a good inferior
article of plumbing,--such as you find everywhere--and add my decomposer,
and there you are. Just use the ordinary gas pipes--and there your
expense ends. Think of it. Why, Major, in five years from now you won't
see a house lighted with anything but sewer-gas. Every physician I talk
to, recommends it; and every plumber."

"But isn't it dangerous?"

"O, yes, more or less, but everything is--coal gas, candles, electricity
--there isn't anything that ain't."

"It lights up well, does it?"

"O, magnificently."

"Have you given it a good trial?"

"Well, no, not a first rate one. Polly's prejudiced, and she won't let
me put it in here; but I'm playing my cards to get it adopted in the
President's house, and then it'll go--don't you doubt it. I shall not
need this one for the present, Washington; you may take it down to some
boarding-house and give it a trial if you like."




CHAPTER XVIII.

Washington shuddered slightly at the suggestion, then his face took on a
dreamy look and he dropped into a trance of thought. After a little,
Sellers asked him what he was grinding in his mental mill.

"Well, this. Have you got some secret project in your head which
requires a Bank of England back of it to make it succeed?"

The Colonel showed lively astonishment, and said:

"Why, Hawkins, are you a mind-reader?"

"I? I never thought of such a thing."

"Well, then how did you happen to drop onto that idea in this curious
fashion? It's just mind-reading, that's what it is, though you may not
know it. Because I have got a private project that requires a Bank of
England at its back. How could you divine that? What was the process?
This is interesting."

"There wasn't any process. A thought like this happened to slip through
my head by accident: How much would make you or me comfortable?
A hundred thousand. Yet you are expecting two or three of--these
inventions of yours to turn out some billions of money--and you are
wanting them to do that. If you wanted ten millions, I could understand
that--it's inside the human limits. But billions! That's clear outside
the limits. There must be a definite project back of that somewhere."