Multimedia Mania/abacus-multimedia-mania.iso/dp/0152/01527.txt

Text File | 1993-07-27 | 7KB | 146 lines

$Unique_ID{bob01527}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Sketches, Old And New
First Interview With Artemus Ward}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Twain, Mark}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{now
understand
artemus
say
cocktail
get
time
vein
ward
}
$Date{1893}
$Log{}
Title:       Sketches, Old And New
Book:        First Interview With Artemus Ward
Author:      Twain, Mark
Date:        1893

First Interview With Artemus Ward

     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
whiskey 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
whiskey 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.  In a minute or two I began to imagine that my
ideas were clouded.  I waited in great anxiety for the conversation to open,
with a sort of vague hope that my understanding would prove clear, after all,
and my misgivings groundless.

     Artemus dropped an unimportant remark or two, and then assumed a look of
superhuman earnestness, and made the following astounding speech.  He said: -

     "Now there is one thing I ought to ask you about before I forget it. You
have been here in Silverland - here in Nevada - two or three years, and, of
course, your position on the daily press has made it necessary for you to go
down in the mines and examine them carefully in detail, and therefore you know
all about the silver-mining business.  Now, what I want to get at is - is,
well, the way the deposits of ore are made, you know. For instance.  Now, as I
understand it, the vein which contains the silver is sandwiched in between
casings of granite, and runs along the ground, and sticks up like a
curb-stone.  Well, take a vein forty feet thick, for example, or eighty, for
that matter, or even a hundred - say you go down on it with a shaft, straight
down, you know, or with what you call 'incline,' maybe you go down five
hundred - any way you go down, and all the time this vein grows narrower, when
the casings come nearer or approach each other, you may say - that is, when
they do approach, which of course they do not always do, particularly in cases
where the nature of the formation is such that they stand apart wider than
they otherwise would, and which geology has failed to account for, although
everything in that science goes to prove that, all things being equal, it
would if it did not, or would not certainly if it did, and then of course they
are.  Do not you think it is?"

     I said to myself: -

     "Now I just knew how it would be - that whiskey cocktail has done the
business for me; I don't understand any more than a clam."

     And then I said aloud -

     "I - I - that is - if you don't mind, would you - would you say that over
again?  I ought" -

     "Oh, certainly, certainly!  You see I am very unfamiliar with the
subject, and perhaps I don't present my case clearly, but I" -

     "No, no - no, no - you state it plain enough, but that cocktail has
muddled me a little.  But I will - no, I do understand for that matter; but I
would get the hang of it all the better if you went over it again - and I'll
pay better attention this time."

     He said, "Why, what I was after was this."

     [Here he became even more fearfully impressive than ever, and emphasized
each particular point by checking it off on his finger ends.]

     "This vein, or lode, or ledge, or whatever you call it, runs along
between two layers of granite, just the same as if it were a sandwich. Very
well.  Now, suppose you go down on that, say a thousand feet, or maybe twelve
hundred (it don't really matter), before you drift, and then you start your
drifts, some of them across the ledge, and others along the length of it,
where the sulphurets - I believe they call them sulphurets, though why they
should, considering that, so far as I can see, the main dependence of a miner
does not so lie, as some suppose, but in which it cannot be successfully
maintained, wherein the same should not continue, while part and parcel of the
same ore not committed to either in the sense referred to, whereas, under
different circumstances, the most inexperienced among us could not detect it
if it were, or might overlook it if it did, or scorn the very idea of such a
thing, even though it were palably demonstrated as such.  Am I not right?"

     I said, sorrowfully - "I feel ashamed of myself, Mr. Ward.  I know I
ought to understand you perfectly well, but you see that treacherous whiskey
cocktail has got into my head, and now I cannot understand even the simplest
proposition.  I told you how it would be."

     "Oh, don't mind it, don't mind it; the fault was my own, no doubt -
though I did think it clear enough for" -

     "Don't say a word.  Clear!  Why, you stated it as clear as the sun to
anybody but an abject idiot; but it's that confounded cocktail that has played
the mischief."

     "No; now don't say that.  I'll begin it all over again, and" -

     "Don't now - for goodness sake, don't do anything of the kind, because I
tell you my head is in such a condition that I don't believe I could
understand the most trifling question a man could ask me."

     "Now, don't you be afraid.  I'll put it so plain this time that you can't
help but get the hang of it.  We will begin at the very beginning." [Leaning
far across the table, with determined impressiveness wrought upon his every
feature, and fingers prepared to keep tally of each point as enumerated; and
I, leaning forward with painful interest, resolved to comprehend or perish.]
"You know the vein, the ledge, the thing that contains the metal, whereby it
constitutes the medium between all other forces, whether of present or remote
agencies, so brought to bear in favor of the former against the latter, or the
latter against the former or all, or both, or compromising the relative
differences existing within the radius whence culminate the several degrees of
similarity to which" -

     I said - "Oh, hang my wooden head, it ain't any use! - it ain't any use
to try - I can't understand anything.  The plainer you get it the more I can't
get the hang of it."

     I heard a suspicious noise behind me, and turned in time to see Hingston
dodging behind a newspaper, and quaking with a gentle ecstasy of laughter.  I
looked at Ward again, and he had thrown off his dread solemnity and was
laughing also.  Then I saw that I had been sold - that I had been made the
victim of a swindle in the way of a string of plausibly worded sentences that
didn't mean anything under the sun.  Artemus Ward was one of the best fellows
in the world, and one of the most companionable. It has been said that he was
not fluent in conversation, but, with the above experience in my mind, I
differ.