Mark Twain's " Long Nines."

Otago Witness, Issue 2785, 31 July 1907, Page 87

Mark Twain's " Long Nines."

In his younger days, Mark Twain tells uff in his autobiography running in the North American review, he used +o buy liis cigars with an eye to quantity rather than quality, fie could smoke anything and enjoy it; but his friends were not all co ' fortunate, as he discovered one night- at the Hartford Monday Evening Club. That evening, when he was entertaining the club", his coloured butler came to him when supper was nearly over, and Mr Clemens "noticed that he was pale." "Normally/ he says, "his complexion was a clear black 1, and very handsome, but now it had modified to old amber." The butler explained: "Mr Clem-ens, what are we going to do? There is not a cigar in the house but thoso. old Wheeling long nines. No one can srroke them but you. They kill at 30 yards. It is too late to telephone —wo couldn't get any cigarß out from town. What can we do? Ain't it best to say nothing, and let on that we didn't think? 1* "Xo," I said, "that would not be honest. Fetch out the long nines"—which be did. The conversation had been brilliantly animated up to that moment, continues Mark Twain, but now a frost fell upon

the company. That is to say, not all of a sudden, but the frost fell upon each man as he took up a cigar and held it poised in the air —and there, »in the middle, bis sentence broke off. That kind of thing went on all around the table, until when the butler had completed his task of handing the cigars out the whole place wasj full of a thick solemnity and silence. To quote Mark Twain's own words: "Those- men began to light the cigars. Rev. Dr Parker was the first man to light. He took three or four heroic whiffs —then gave.- it up. He got up with the remark that he had to go to the bedside of a sick parishioner. He started out. Rev. Dr Burton was the next man. He took only one whiff, and followed Parker. He furnished a pretext, and you could tell by the sound of his voice that he didn't think much of the- pretext, and was vexed with Parker for getting in ahead with a fictitious ailing client. Rev. Mr Twitchell followed, and said he had to go now because he must take .the midnight train for Boston. It was only a quarter to 11 when they began to distribute pretexts. At 10 minutes to 11 all these people were out of the house. When nobody was left but George and me I was cheerful —l had no compunctions of conscience, no griefs of any kind. But George was beyond speech, because he held the honour and credit of the family above his own, and he was ashamed that this smirch had been put upon it. I told him to go to bed and try to sleep it off. I went to bed myself. At breakfast in the morn- j ing when George was passing a cup of ! coffee I saw it tremble in his hand. I knew by that sign that there was something on his mind. He brought the cup to me and asked impressively: " 'Mr Clemens, how far is it from the front door to upper gate?' ' "I said, 'It is a hundred and twenty-five steps.' "He said, *Mr Clemens, you can start at ' lie front door and you can go plumb to the upper gate and tread on one of them cigars every time.' "It wasn't true in detail, but in essentials it was." j \