it, and that decided him, of course. He wasn't going to have Nat Parsons
coming back bragging about seeing the balloon, and him having to listen
to it and keep quiet. So he wanted me and Jim to go too, and we went.

It was a noble big balloon, and had wings and fans and all sorts of
things, and wasn't like any balloon you see in pictures. It was away out
toward the edge of town, in a vacant lot, corner of Twelfth street; and
there was a big crowd around it, making fun of it, and making fun of the
man,--a lean pale feller with that soft kind of moonlight in his eyes,
you know,--and they kept saying it wouldn't go. It made him hot to hear
them, and he would turn on them and shake his fist and say they was
animals and blind, but some day they would find they had stood face to
face with one of the men that lifts up nations and makes civilizations,
and was too dull to know it; and right here on this spot their own
children and grandchildren would build a monument to him that would
outlast a thousand years, but his name would outlast the monument. And
then the crowd would burst out in a laugh again, and yell at him, and ask
him what was his name before he was married, and what he would take to
not do it, and what was his sister's cat's grandmother's name, and all
the things that a crowd says when they've got hold of a feller that they
see they can plague. Well, some things they said WAS funny,--yes, and
mighty witty too, I ain't denying that,--but all the same it warn't fair
nor brave, all them people pitching on one, and they so glib and sharp,
and him without any gift of talk to answer back with. But, good land!
what did he want to sass back for? You see, it couldn't do him no good,
and it was just nuts for them. They HAD him, you know. But that was his
way. I reckon he couldn't help it; he was made so, I judge. He was a good
enough sort of cretur, and hadn't no harm in him, and was just a genius,
as the papers said, which wasn't his fault. We can't all be sound: we've
got to be the way we're made. As near as I can make out, geniuses think