messenger should enter and say----"

"You are become Earl of Durham," interrupted Livy. The very words I
was going to utter. Yet there had not been a word said about the
earl, or any other person, nor had there been any conversation
calculated to suggest any such subject.

CLI

MARK TWAIN MUGWUMPS

The Republican Presidential nomination of James G. Blaine resulted in a
political revolt such as the nation had not known. Blaine was immensely
popular, but he had many enemies in his own party. There were strong
suspicions of his being connected with doubtful financiering-enterprises,
more or less sensitive to official influence, and while these scandals
had become quieted a very large portion of the Republican constituency
refused to believe them unjustified. What might be termed the
intellectual element of Republicanism was against Blame: George William
Curtis, Charles Dudley Warner, James Russell Lowell, Henry Ward Beecher,
Thomas Nast, the firm of Harper & Brothers, Joseph W. Hawley, Joseph
Twichell, Mark Twain--in fact the majority of thinking men who held
principle above party in their choice.

On the day of the Chicago nomination, Henry C. Robinson, Charles E.
Perkins, Edward M. Bunce, F. G. Whitmore, and Samuel C. Dunham were
collected with Mark Twain in his billiard-room, taking turns at the game
and discussing the political situation, with George, the colored butler,
at the telephone down-stairs to report the returns as they came in. As
fast as the ballot was received at the political headquarters down-town,
it was telephoned up to the house and George reported it through the
speaking-tube.

The opposition to Blaine in the convention was so strong that no one of
the assembled players seriously expected his nomination. What was their
amazement, then, when about mid-afternoon George suddenly announced
through the speaking-tube that Blaine was the nominee. The butts of the
billiard cues came down on the floor with a bump, and for a moment the
players were speechless. Then Henry Robinson said:

"It's hard luck to have to vote for that man."

Clemens looked at him under his heavy brows.

"But--we don't--have to vote for him," he said.

"Do you mean to say that you're not going to vote for him?"

"Yes, that is what I mean to say. I am not going to vote for him."

There was a general protest. Most of those assembled declared that when
a party's representatives chose a man one must sta