ain then had in
prospect, offering himself for caricature if needed.

I would fit in as a fool character, believing, what the Tennessee
mountaineers predicted, that I would grow up to be a great man and go to
Congress. I did not think it worth the trouble to be a common great man
like Andy Johnson. I wouldn't give a pinch of snuff, little as I needed
it, to be anybody, less than Napoleon. So when a farmer took my father's
offer for some chickens under advisement till the next day I said to
myself, "Would Napoleon Bonaparte have taken under advisement till the
next day an offer to sell him some chickens?"

To his last day and hour Orion was the dreamer, always with a new plan.
It was one morning early that he died. He had seated himself at a table
with pencil and paper and was setting down the details of his latest
project when death came to him, kindly enough, in the moment of new hope.

There came also, just then, news of the death of their old Hartford
butler, George. It saddened them as if it had been a member of the
household. Jean, especially, wept bitterly.

CC

MARK TWAIN PAYS HIS DEBTS

'Following the Equator'--[In England, More Tramps Abroad.]--had come from
the press in November and had been well received. It was a large,
elaborate subscription volume, more elaborate than artistic in
appearance. Clemens, wishing to make some acknowledgment to his
benefactor, tactfully dedicated it to young Harry Rogers:

"With recognition of what he is, and an apprehension of what he may
become unless he form himself a little more closely upon the model of the
author."

Following the Equator was Mark Twain's last book of travel, and it did
not greatly resemble its predecessors. It was graver than the Innocents
Abroad; it was less inclined to cynicism and burlesque than the Tramp. It
was the thoughtful, contemplative observation and philosophizing of the
soul-weary, world-weary pilgrim who has by no means lost interest, but
only his eager, first enthusiasm. It is a gentler book than the Tramp
Abroad, and for the most part a pleasanter one. It is better history and
more informing. Its humor, too, is of a worthier sort, less likely to be
forced and overdone. The holy Hindoo pilgrim's "itinerary of salvation"
is one of the richest of all Mark Twain's fancies, and is about the best
thing in the book. The revised philosophies of Pudd'nhead Wilson, that
begin each chapter, have many of them passed into our daily speech