The Prince and the Prosecutor: The Mark Twain Mysteries #3. Peter J. Heck
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of a born entertainer. Presently I recognized a person in the crowd whom I had noticed earlier on deck: Wilfred Smythe’s father, the Methodist minister, who waited patiently until my employer was somewhat free of the initial press of admirers.
“I am especially pleased to meet you, Mr. Clemens,” said the minister, stepping forward and smiling broadly. “I am the Reverend Dr. Charles Smythe, pastor of Trinity Church.”
“A pleasure, Dr. Smythe,” said my employer, shaking hands. I thought I detected a wary look in his eye. “That would be Doctor of Divinity, I assume.”
Dr. Smythe beamed. “Yes, I must confess I take a measure of pride—not an unbecoming measure, I hope—in having earned that distinction. But you know, Mr. Clemens, I take more pride in a distinction that I share with you.”
Mr. Clemens raised his eyebrows. “Really? Let me guess what that could be. Were you a riverboat pilot?”
“No, sir,” said the minister smugly.
Mr. Clemens peered intently at him, as if to learn the answer from his physiognomy. “Then maybe you were a gold miner, or a newspaper editor.”
“The latter is a close guess,” said Dr. Smythe. “I will not keep you any longer in the dark. I am an author in my own right.”
“You are? What a surprise!” said Mr. Clemens. “I meet so few fellow authors. Here, Kipling, here’s another author among us! Dr. Smythe, this is my friend Rudyard Kipling. He’s an author, too.”
Mr. Kipling looked at Mr. Clemens and said dryly, “How extraordinary. We shall have a regular literary salon aboard if this continues.” He turned back to the gentleman with whom he’d been speaking, a big, red-faced man with a bulbous nose and a wide gap between his front teeth.
“Tell me, Dr. Smythe, do you publish under your own name, or do you follow my example and use a pen name?” asked my employer. Now his eyes were twinkling, and I sensed that he was up to some mischief.
“I must confess that I use my own name,” said Dr. Smythe. “I know that some may look on it as undue self-aggrandizement, but I see it as promoting the cause of the Church itself. My humble hope is to bring a few additional sheep to the fold, and if allowing my name to appear on the title page of my book can accomplish that, then I rest content.”
“And what is your book, if I may ask?” said Mr. Clemens. “I will have to make an effort to find it in the bookstores when we reach England.”
“Oh, I fear my little book has not spread as far as England,” Dr. Smythe replied. “Perhaps on this journey I will have the opportunity to rectify that in part.”
“Well, if the stores don’t have it in England, I’ll try to get it sent over from America,” said Mr. Clemens. “It’d be a shame to miss it, seeing as how we’re traveling together.”
“Why, there’s no need for that,” said Dr. Smythe, reaching into his coat pocket. “I just happen to have brought a number of copies with me, and I will be delighted to present one to such an eminent author as Mark Twain.” He handed Mr. Clemens a small volume on the cover of which I could see the title: A Christian’s Duty, by Charles H. Smythe, D.D. “Would you like it inscribed?” said the minister.
“Yes, that would be a kindness,” said Mr. Clemens, holding out the book. “Could you sign it ‘To my good friend Sam’? It may be useful, some day, for me to lay claim to the connection. Policemen and customs inspectors often place undue importance on such things.”
“You do me too much honor,” said Dr. Smythe, but he took the book back, went over to a nearby table where there was a pen and an inkwell, and signed the title page, blotting it carefully before returning it to my employer.
Mr. Clemens opened the book and looked at it, then turned a page and looked again. “This is remarkable,” he said, turning another page. He flipped through several pages, then skipped to a page toward the end, while Dr. Smythe looked on. Presently he glanced up from the book with a troubled expression and said, “I hope you won’t mind my saying this, Dr. Smythe, but this is very familiar. In fact, I believe I have a book at home that has every word of yours in it.”
“No,” said the minister. “That can’t be—this is my own composition. I will grant you that the theme is a traditional one, and of course I quote freely from the Gospels. But I have certainly not plagiarized.”
“Nevertheless, I believe the book in my library has every word of yours in it. I wonder if they have a copy on board ship.”
“I should certainly like to see it, if they do,” said Dr. Smythe, a look of indignation on his face. “I cannot pretend to be among the giants of literature, but I would never stoop to borrowing another’s words and publishing them as my own.”
“I’ll tell you what,” said Mr. Clemens. “The ship’s library is right down the corridor. Wait here just a few minutes, and I’ll go see if they have it. This is really quite remarkable.”
We waited perhaps five minutes before Mr. Clemens returned to the room, a large volume under his arm. “I found it, Dr. Smythe,” he said cheerfully. He held the book up in both hands, and every head in the room turned to look at the title. After a moment of shocked silence, Dr. Smythe doubled up in laughter, and the rest of the room followed suit.
Finally, Dr. Smythe recovered his composure enough to speak. “You’re absolutely right, Mr. Clemens,” he said, chuckling. “But what you neglected to mention was that you have taken every single word of your books from it, too!” He was correct, of course: The book was Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary.
Later, in the smoking room, Robert Babson was prominently seated at the card table with several of his fellows, grinning broadly. One would have thought he had accomplished something noteworthy, instead of embarrassing a gentleman twice his age by playing a childish prank. He was a loud and arrogant card player, although evidently not a successful one. Every time I glanced in his direction, his opponents were taking another trick. I was glad to see Babson get his comeuppance, although it did neither me nor Prinz Karl any tangible good.
Having been effectively “on stage” for the last three hours, Mr. Clemens was content to sit at a little corner table, smoking cigars with Mr. Kipling, without making any effort to entertain the room at large. For myself, I was still thinking of an early bedtime, although my employer had prevailed upon me to stay and have a glass of whisky and soda water before retiring. After we had settled in, Mr. Clemens glanced around as if to make sure nobody was listening too closely to us, then leaned forward and tapped the ash off his cigar. “Well, Kipling, I reckon you know as much about geography as anybody,” he said in a low voice.
“That depends on where you’re talking about,” said Kipling. “I know the Orient, but South America’s another story. And I’d think you know more about the United States than I do.”
“How about Germany?”
“I’ve never gone there, to tell the truth,” said Kipling. After a moment, he raised his thick, dark eyebrows. “I thought you had been there. What do you expect me to know about it that you don’t?”
Mr. Clemens took another glance around the room, then lowered his voice again and said, “Ever hear of Ruckgarten before today?”
Kipling’s eyebrows went even higher. “Aha, I see what you’re getting at. No, I don’t think I have heard of it. You know, I wondered about that when he introduced himself, but it slipped my mind afterward. I say, Clemens, this is an annoyance.”
“I suppose we might do some research in the ship’s library, if we want to be dead certain. There should be a map or two there. Or maybe some history books,” said my employer. “But I have a pretty good idea what we’ll find, if we look.”
“I believe so,” said Kipling. He picked up his glass and took a sip, then scowled. “I shall have to warn Carrie about him. I wonder what possessed me to let her dance with the bounder!”
Mr.