dozens of incidents of their young lives and mine together; things
that happened to us in the morning of life, in the blossom of our
youth, in the good days, the dear days, "the days when we went
gipsying, a long time ago." Most of them creditable to me, too.
One child to whom I paid court when she was five years old and I
eight still lives in Hannibal, and she visited me last summer,
traversing the necessary ten or twelve hundred miles of railroad
without damage to her patience or to her old-young vigor. Another
little lassie to whom I paid attention in Hannibal when she was
nine years old and I the same, is still alive--in London--and hale
and hearty, just as I am. And on the few surviving steamboats--
those lingering ghosts and remembrancers of great fleets that plied
the big river in the beginning of my water-career--which is exactly
as long ago as the whole invoice of the life-years of Shakespeare
number--there are still findable two or three river-pilots who saw
me do creditable things in those ancient days; and several white-
headed engineers; and several roustabouts and mates; and several
deck-hands who used to heave the lead for me and send up on the
still night air the "six--feet--SCANT!" that made me shudder, and
the "M-a-r-k--twain!" that took the shudder away, and presently the
darling "By the d-e-e-p--four!" that lifted me to heaven for joy.
{1} They know about me, and can tell. And so do printers, from
St. Louis to New York; and so do newspaper reporters, from Nevada
to San Francisco. And so do the police. If Shakespeare had really
been celebrated, like me, Stratford could have told things about
him; and if my experience goes for anything, they'd have done it.



CHAPTER VII