n getting to
work. All Australia was ready for them, in fact, and nowhere in their
own country were they more lavishly and royally received than in that
faraway Pacific continent. Crowded houses, ovations, and gorgeous
entertainment--public and private--were the fashion, and a little more
than two weeks after arrival Clemens was able to send back another two
thousand dollars to apply on his debts. But he had hard luck, too, for
another carbuncle developed at Melbourne and kept him laid up for nearly
a week. When he was able to go before an audience again he said:

"The doctor says I am on the verge of being a sick man. Well, that may
be true enough while I am lying abed all day trying to persuade his
cantankerous, rebellious medicines to agree with each other; but when I
come out at night and get a welcome like this I feel as young and healthy
as anybody, and as to being on the verge of being a sick man I don't take
any stock in that. I have been on the verge of being an angel all my
life, but it's never happened yet."

In his book Clemens has told us his joy in Australia, his interest in the
perishing native tribes, in the wonderfully governed cities, in the
gold-mines, and in the advanced industries. The climate he thought
superb; "a darling climate," he says in a note-book entry.

Perhaps one ought to give a little idea of the character of his
entertainment. His readings were mainly from his earlier books,
'Roughing It' and 'Innocents Abroad'. The story of the dead man which,
as a boy, he had discovered in his father's office was one that he often
told, and the "Mexican Plug" and his "Meeting with Artemus Ward" and the
story of Jim Blaine's old ram; now and again he gave chapters from 'Huck
Finn' and 'Tom Sawyer'. He was likely to finish with that old fireside
tale of his early childhood, the "Golden Arm." But he sometimes told the
watermelon story, written for Mrs. Rogers, or gave extracts from Adam's
Diary, varying his program a good deal as he went along, and changing it
entirely where he appeared twice in one city.

Mrs. Clemens and Clara, as often as they had heard him, generally went
when the hour of entertainment came: They enjoyed seeing his triumph with
the different audiences, watching the effect of his subtle art.

One story, the "Golden Arm," had in it a pause, an effective, delicate
pause which must be timed to the fraction of a second in order to realize
its full value. Somewhere before we have stat