The Complete Short Stories of Mark Twain (Illustrated). Mark Twain
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china one, you should treat her with a show of kindness nevertheless. And you ought not to attempt to make a forcible swap with her unless your conscience would justify you in it, and you know you are able to do it.
You ought never to take your little brother's "chawing-gum " away from him by main force: it is better to rope him in with the promise of the first two dollars and a half you find floating down the river on a grindstone. In the artless simplicity natural to his time of life, he will regard it as a perfectly fair transaction. In all ages of the world this eminently plausible fiction has lured the obtuse infant to financial ruin and disaster.
If at any time you find it necessary to correct your brother, do not correct him with mud—never on any account throw mud at him, because it will soil his clothes. It is better to scald him a little; for then you attain two desirable results—you secure his immediate attention to the lesson you are inculcating, and at the same time, your hot water will have a tendency to remove impurities from his person—and possibly the skin also, in spots.
If your mother tells you to do a thing, it is wrong to reply that you wont. It is better and more becoming to intimate that you will do as she bids you, and then afterwards act quietly in the matter according to the dictates of your better judgment.
You should ever bear in mind that it is to your kind parents that you are indebted for your food and your nice bed and your beautiful clothes, and for the privilege of staying home from school when you let on that you are sick. Therefore you ought to respect their little prejudices and humour their little whims, and put up with their little foibles, until they get to crowding you too much.
Good little girls should always show marked deference for the aged. You ought never to "sass" old people—unless they "sass" you first.
Concerning Chambermaids
Against all chambermaids, of whatsoever age or nationality, I launch the curse of bachelordom! Because:
They always put the pillows at the opposite end of the bed from the gas-burner, so that while you read and smoke before sleeping (as is the ancient and honoured custom of bachelors), you have to hold your book aloft, in an uncomfortable position, to keep the light from dazzling your eyes.
When they find the pillows removed to the other end of the bed in the morning, they receive not the suggestion in a friendly spirit; but, glorying in their absolute sovereignty, and unpitying your helplessness, they make the bed just as it was originally, and gloat in secret over the pang their tyranny will cause you.
Always after that, when they find you have transposed the pillows, they undo your work, and thus defy and seek to embitter the life that God has given you.
If they cannot get the light in an inconvenient position any other way, they move the bed.
If you pull your trunk out six inches from the wall, so that the lid will stay up when you open it, they always shove that trunk back again. They do it on purpose.
If you want the spittoon in a certain spot, where it will be handy, they don't, and so they move it.
They always put your other boots into inaccessible places. They chiefly enjoy depositing them as far under the bed as the wall will permit. It is because this compels you to get down in an undignified attitude and make wild sweeps for them in the dark with the boot-jack, and swear.
They always put the match-box in some other place. They hunt up a new place for it every day, and put up a bottle, or other perishable glass thing, where the box stood before. This is to cause you to break that glass thing, groping in the dark, and get yourself into trouble.
They are for ever and ever moving the furniture. When you come in, in the night, you can calculate on finding the bureau where the wardrobe was in the morning. And when you go out in the morning, if you leave the slop-bucket by the door and rocking-chair by the window, when you come in at midnight, or thereabouts, you will fall over that rocking-chair, and you will proceed toward the window and sit down in that slop-tub. This will disgust you. They like that.
No matter where you put anything, they are not going to let it stay there. They will take it and move it the first chance they get. It is their nature. And, besides, it gives them pleasure to be mean and contrary this way. They would die if they couldn't be villains.
They always save up all the old scraps of printed rubbish you throw on the floor, and stack them up carefully on the table, and start the fire with your valuable manuscripts. If there is any one particular old scrap that you are more down on than any other, and which you are gradually wearing your life out trying to get rid of, you may take all the pains you possibly can in that direction, but it wont be of any use, because they will always fetch that old scrap back and put it in the same old place again every time. It does them good.
And they use up more hair-oil than any six men. If charged with purloining the same, they lie about it. What do they care about a here after? Absolutely nothing.
If you leave the key in the door for convenience sake, they will carry it down to the office and give it to the clerk. They do this under the vile pretence of trying to protect your property from thieves; but actually they do it because they want to make you tramp back downstairs after it when you come home tired, or put you to the trouble of sending a waiter for it, which waiter will expect you to pay him something. In which case I suppose the degraded creatures divide.
They keep always trying to make your bed before you get up, thus destroying your rest and inflicting agony upon you; but after you get up, they don't come any more till next day.
They do all the mean things they can think of, and they do them just out of pure cussedness, and nothing else.
Chambermaids are dead to every human instinct.
I have cursed them in behalf of outraged bachelordom. They deserve it. If I can get a bill through the Legislature abolishing chambermaids, I mean to do it.
Remarkable Instances of Presence of Mind
The steamer Ajax encountered a terrible storm on her down trip from San Francisco to the Sandwich Islands. It tore her light spars and rigging all to shreds and splinters, upset all furniture that could be upset, and spilled passengers around and knocked them hither and thither with a perfect looseness. For forty-eight hours no table could be set, and everybody had to eat as best they might under the circumstances. Most of the party went hungry, though, and attended to their praying. But there, was one set of "seven-up" players who nailed a card-table to the floor and stuck to their game through thick and thin.
Captain F——, of a great banking-house in San Francisco, a man of great coolness and presence of mind, was of this party. One night the storm suddenly culminated in a climax of unparalleled fury; the vessel went down on her beam ends, and everything let go with a crash—passengers, tables, cards, bottles—everything came clattering to the floor in a chaos of disorder and confusion. In a moment fifty sore distressed and pleading voices ejaculated, "O Heaven! help us in our extremity!" and one voice rang out clear and sharp above the plaintive chorus and said, "Remember, boys, I played the tray for low!" It was one of the gentlemen I have mentioned who spoke. And the remark showed good presence of mind and an eye to business.
Lewis L——, of a great hotel in San Francisco, was a passenger. There were some savage grizzly bears chained in cages on deck. One night, in the midst of a hurricane, which was accompanied by rain and thunder and lightning, Mr. L. came up, on his way to bed. Just as he stepped into the pitchy darkness of the deck and reeled to the still more pitchy motion of the vessel, (bad,) the captain sang out hoarsely through his speaking-trumpet, "Bear a hand aft, there!" The words were sadly marred and jumbled by the roaring wind. Mr. L—— thought the captain said, " The bears are after you there!" and he "let go all holts" and went down into