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New stories about Twain keep popping up in magazines and radio programmes (Hal Halbrook’s enormously successful impersonation of Twain old ones are refurbished and given new tag lines and since the great humourist is in no position to repudiate them, the Twain legend continues to grow). At a banquet in New York, Twain was seated next to the guest of honour who decided to test some of the stories he intended to use. "I hope you haven’t heard this one," he would begin and then barge on without waiting for Twain’s courteous, but increasingly weak, "No, I don’t think I have." As the 14th story began, Twain lost his celebrated temper. "Sir," he declared angrily, "your previous 13 stories were old and badly told, but at this one I positively draw the line. Not only have I heard it 13 times earlier, but I invented it." The guest of honour, crushed declared sadly, "I was afraid of addressing this hypocritical audience before I came here, but you’ve now destroyed the last vestiges of my self-confidence." "Cheer up," counselled Twain, "and remember, they expect very little of you." A businessman once boasted to Twain, "Before I die, I plan to make a pilgrimage to the Hilly Land. I’ll climb Mount Sinai and read the Ten Commandments aloud." "I’ve a better idea," said Twain, "why don’t you stay right here in Boston and keep them?" In Richmond, Virginia, one day, Twain complained of a severe pain in the head. "It can’t be the food you ate or the air you breathe in Richmond," said a native son boastfully, "why, we’re the healthiest city in the States and our death rate is already down to one person per day." "Run down to the newspaper office," begged Twain, "and see if today’s victim has died yet." Mark Twain wrote his Tom Sawyer in the tranquility and seclusion of his Hartford, Connecticut home during the summer of 1886-87. He was disturbed so seldom, reported his wife, that he scarcely lost his temper more than six to seven times a day. One great tragedy occurred when a neighbour decided to teach his young nephew how to use an air gun outside Twain’s study window. "Tarnation, "cried Twain leaning out of the window, "take that boy elsewhere and teach him how to shoot ducks." The neighbour took him at his work, but unfortunately the duck he shot turned out to be a prize possession of Twain. There was another side to Twain’s nature. He was often irritable, demanding and unreasonable and it was his publisher and business partner Charles Webster who bore the brunt of his displeasure. In his delightful book, Mark Twain, businessman, Webster’s son Samuel writes of his father’s trails and tribulations. "About once a week, "he says "Mr Clemens wanted a law suit started against someone or have an advertisement prepared that would have started several against him. If saner counsels had not prevailed, thinks Samuel Webster, Mark Twain would have been one more author who write his most famous work in prison. A neighbour of Twain in Hartford was Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frail and failing mentally, she often used to wander into the Twain greenhouse and pluck his favourite flowers. Twain fretted and fumed and wrote to Charles Webster, "She seems to think that my place is in Uncle Tom’s Cabin," but he did nothing to stop her. Mark Twain’s Huckleberry’s Finn was published in 1889 and he wrote pessimistically to Webster, "I can see nothing that’ll prevent another catastrophe" and called Webster an "incorrigible optimist" for disagreeing with him. When Huck Finn became his biggest best-seller (and incidentally an All-American classic) Twain commented ironically, "My publisher tried to dissuade me by discounting my prophecies about the book’s high commercial worth." Mark Twain’s method of disposing off supplicants was to refer them to Webster. One such man appeared before Webster with a note that read, "Dear Charley, give this man what he wants or shoot him. I don’t care which." Samuel Webster’s laconic footnote is "My father shot him." A reporter visiting Twain’s old haunts in Hannibal, Mississippi ran into a old friend who discounted his former school mate’s fame. "Shucks, "he said disdainfully, "I knew as many stories as Sam Clemens did. He just wrote them down." Samuel L. ("Mark Twain") Clemens, humourist, would have gladly agreed with the old friend’s assessment of his fame.
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"WHEN
your audience is restive," a lecture manager once advised a new
client, "It’s always a good idea to tell a story about Mark
Twain."