Multimedia Mania/abacus-multimedia-mania.iso/dp/0129/01298.txt

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$Unique_ID{bob01298}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{(A) Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court
Chapter 32}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Twain, Mark}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{table
day
ye
fine
like
bread
every
how
new
say}
$Date{1889}
$Log{}
Title:       (A) Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court
Author:      Twain, Mark
Date:        1889

Chapter 32

Dowley's Humiliation

     Well, when that cargo arrived, toward sunset, Saturday afternoon, I had
my hands full to keep the Marcos from fainting.  They were sure Jones and I
were ruined past help, and they blamed themselves as accessories to this
bankruptcy.  You see, in addition to the dinner materials, which called for a
sufficiently round sum, I had bought a lot of extras for the future comfort
of the family: for instance, a big lot of wheat, a delicacy as rare to the
tables of their class as was ice cream to a hermit's; also a sizable deal
dinner table; also two entire pounds of salt, which was another piece of
extravagance in those people's eyes; also crockery, stools, the clothes, a
small cask of beer, and so on.  I instructed the Marcos to keep quiet about
this sumptuousness, so as to give me a chance to surprise the guests and show
off a little.  Concerning the new clothes, the simple couple were like
children; they were up and down, all right, to see if it wasn't nearly
daylight, so that they could put them on, and they were into them at last as
much as an hour before dawn was due.  Then their pleasure - not to say
delirium - was so fresh and novel and inspiring that the sight of it paid me
well for the interruptions which my sleep had suffered.  The king had slept
just as usual - like the dead.  The Marcos could not thank him for their
clothes, that being forbidden; but they tried every way they could think of
to make him see how grateful they were.  Which all went for nothing: he
didn't notice any change.

     It turned out to be one of those rich and rare fall days which is just a
June day toned down to a degree where it is heaven to be out of doors.
Toward noon the guests arrived and we assembled under a great tree and were
soon as sociable as old acquaintances.  Even the king's reserve melted a
little, though it was some little trouble to him to adjust himself to the
name of Jones along at first.  I had asked him to try to not forget that he
was a farmer; but I had also considered it prudent to ask him to let the
thing stand at that, and not elaborate it any.  Because he was just the kind
of person you could depend on to spoil a little thing like that if you didn't
warn him, his tongue was so handy, and his spirit so willing, and his
information so uncertain.

     Dowley was in fine feather, and I early got him started, and then
adroitly worked him around onto his own history for a text and himself for a
hero, and then it was good to sit there and hear him hum.  Self-made man, you
know.  They know how to talk.  They do deserve more credit than any other
breed of men, yes, that is true; and they are among the very first to find it
out, too.  He told how he had begun life an orphan lad without money and
without friends able to help him; how he had lived as the slaves of the
meanest master lived; how his day's work was from sixteen to eighteen hours
long, and yielded him only enough black bread to keep him in a half-fed
condition; how his faithful endeavors finally attracted the attention of a
good blacksmith, who came near knocking him dead with kindness by suddenly
offering, when he was totally unprepared, to take him as his bound apprentice
for nine years and give him board and clothes and teach him the trade - or
"mystery" as Dowley called it.  That was his first great rise, his first
gorgeous stroke of fortune; and you saw that he couldn't yet speak of it
without a sort of eloquent wonder and delight that such a gilded promotion
should have fallen to the lot of a common human being.  He got no new
clothing during his apprenticeship, but on his graduation day his master
tricked him out in spang-new tow linens and made him feel unspeakably rich
and fine.

     "I remember me of that day!" the wheelwright sang out, with enthusiasm.

     "And I likewise!" cried the mason.  "I would not believe they were thine
own; in faith I could not."

     "Nor others!" shouted Dowley, with sparkling eyes.  "I was like to lose
my character, the neighbors wending I had mayhap been stealing.  It was a
great day, a great day; one forgetteth not days like that."

     Yes, and his master was a fine man, and prosperous, and always had a
great feast of meat twice in the year, and with it white bread, true wheaten
bread; in fact, lived like a lord, so to speak.  And in time Dowley succeeded
to the business and married the daughter.

     "And now consider what is come to pass," said he, impressively.  "Two
times in every month there is fresh meat upon my table."  He made a pause
here, to let that fact sink home, then added - "and eight times, salt meat."

     "It is even true," said the wheelwright, with bated breath.

     "I know it of mine own knowledge," said the mason, in the same reverent
fashion.

     "On my table appeareth white bread every Sunday in the year," added the
master smith, with solemnity.  "I leave it to your own consciences, friends,
if this is not also true?"

     "By my head, yes!" cried the mason.

     "I can testify it - and I do," said the wheelwright.

     "And as to furniture, ye shall say yourselves what mine equipment is."
He waved his hand in fine gesture of granting frank and unhampered freedom
of speech, and added: "Speak as ye are moved; speak as ye would speak an I
were not here."

     "Ye have five stools, and of the sweetest workmanship at that, albeit
your family is but three," said the wheelwright with deep respect.

     "And six wooden goblets, and six platters of wood and two of pewter to
eat and drink from withal," said the mason, impressively.  "And I say it as
knowing God is my judge, and we tarry not here alway, but must answer at the
last day for the things said in the body, be they false or be they sooth."

     "Now ye know what manner of man I am, brother Jones," said the smith,
with a fine and friendly condescension, "and doubtless ye would look to find
me a man jealous of his due of respect and but sparing of outgo to strangers
till their rating and quality be assured, but trouble yourself not, as
concerning that; wit ye well ye shall find me a man that regardeth not these
matters but is willing to receive any he as his fellow and equal that
carrieth a right heart in his body, be his worldly estate howsoever modest.
And in token of it, here is my hand; and I say with my own mouth we are
equals - equals" - and he smiled around on the company with the satisfaction
of a god who is doing the handsome and gracious thing and is quite well aware
of it.

     The king took the hand with a poorly disguised reluctance, and let go of
it as willingly as a lady lets go of a fish; all of which had a good effect,
for it was mistaken for an embarrassment natural to one who was being beamed
upon by greatness.

     The dame brought out the table, now, and set it under the tree.  It
caused a visible stir of surprise, it being brand new and a sumptuous article
of deal.  But the surprise rose higher still, when the dame, with a body
oozing easy indifference at every pore, but eyes that gave it all away by
absolutely flaming with vanity, slowly unfolded an actual simon-pure
tablecloth and spread it.  That was a notch above even the blacksmith's
domestic grandeurs, and it hit him hard; you could see it.  But Marco was in
Paradise; you could see that, too.  Then the dame brought two fine new stools
- whew!  That was a sensation; it was visible in the eyes of every guest.
Then she brought two more - as calmly as she could.  Sensation again - with
awed murmurs.  Again she brought two - walking on air, she was so proud.  The
guests were petrified, and the mason muttered:

     "There is that about earthly pomps which doth ever move to reverence."

     As the dame turned away, Marco couldn't help slapping on the climax
while the thing was hot; so he said with what was meant for a languid
composure but was a poor imitation of it:

     "These suffice; leave the rest."

     So there were more yet!  It was a fine effect.  I couldn't have played
the hand better myself.

     From this out, the madame piled up the surprises with a rush that fired
the general astonishment up to a hundred and fifty in the shade, and at the
same time paralyzed expression of it down to gasped "Oh's" and "Ah's" and
mute upliftings of hands and eyes.  She fetched crockery - new, and plenty of
it; new wooden goblets and other table furniture; and beer, fish, chicken, a
goose, eggs, roast beef, roast mutton, a ham, a small roast pig, and a wealth
of genuine white wheaten bread.  Take it by and large, that spread laid
everything far and away in the shade that ever that crowd had seen before.
And while they sat there just simply stupefied with wonder and awe, I sort of
waved my hand as if by accident, and the storekeeper's son emerged from space
and said he had come to collect.

     "That's all right," I said, indifferently.  "What is the amount?  Give
us the items."

     Then he read off this bill, while those three amazed men listened, and
serene waves of satisfaction rolled over my soul and alternate waves of
terror and admiration surged over Marco's:
     2 pounds salt                                           200
     8 dozen pints beer, in the wood                         800
     3 bushels wheat                                       2,700
     2 pounds fish                                           100
     3 hens                                                  400
     1 goose                                                 400
     3  dozen eggs                                           150
     1 roast of beef                                         450
     1  "        " mutton                                    400
     1 ham                                                   800
     1 sucking pig                                           500
     2 crockery dinner sets                                6,000
     2 men's suits and underwear                           2,800
     1 stuff and 1 linsey-woolsey gown and underwear       1,600
     8 wooden goblets                                        800
     Various table furniture                              10,000
     1 deal table                                          3,000
     8 stools                                              4,000
     2 miller-guns, loaded                                 3,000

     He ceased.  There was a pale and awful silence.  Not a limb stirred.
Not a nostril betrayed the passage of breath.

     "Is that all?"  I asked, in a voice of the most perfect calmness.

     "All, fair sir, save that certain matters of light moment are placed
together under a head hight sundries.  If it would like you, I will sepa -"

     "It is of no consequence," I said, accompanying the words with a gesture
of the most utter indifference; "give me the grand total, please."

     The clerk leaned against the tree to stay himself, and said:

     "Thirty-nine thousand one hundred and fifty milrays!"

     The wheelwright fell off his stool, the others grabbed the table to save
themselves, and there was a deep and general ejaculation of -

     "God be with us in the day of disaster!"

     The clerk hastened to say:

     "My father chargeth me to say he cannot honorably require you to pay it
all at this time, and therefore only prayeth you -"

     I paid no more heed than if it were the idle breeze, but with an air of
indifference amounting almost to weariness, got out my money and tossed four
dollars onto the table.  Ah, you should have seen them stare!

     The clerk was astonished and charmed.  He asked me to retain one of the
dollars as security, until he could go to town and - I interrupted:

     "What, and fetch back nine cents?  Nonsense.  Take the whole.  Keep the
change."

     There was an amazed murmur to this effect:

     "Verily this being is made of money!  He throweth it away even as it
were dirt."

     The blacksmith was a crushed man.

     The clerk took his money and reeled away drunk with fortune.  I said to
Marco and his wife:

     "Good folk, here is a little trifle for you" -handing the millerguns as
if it were a matter of no consequence though each of them contained fifteen
cents in solid cash; and while the poor creatures went to pieces with
astonishment and gratitude, I turned to the others and said as calmly as one
would ask the time of day:

     "Well, if we are all ready, I judge the dinner is.  Come, fall to."

     Ah, well, it was immense; yes, it was a daisy.  I don't know that I ever
put a situation together better, or got happier spectacular effects out of
the materials available.  The blacksmith - well, he was simply mashed.  Land!
I wouldn't have felt what that man was feeling, for anything in the world.
Here he had been blowing and bragging about his grand meat-feast twice a
year, and his fresh meat twice a month, and his salt meat twice a week, and
his white bread every Sunday the year round - all for a family of three: the
entire cost for the year not above 69.2.6 (sixty-nine cents, two mills, and
six milrays), and all of a sudden here comes along a man who slashes out
nearly four dollars on a single blowout; and not only that, but acts as if it
made him tired to handle such small sums.  Yes, Dowley was a good deal
wilted, and shrunk up and collapsed; he had the aspect of a bladder balloon
that's been stepped on by a cow.