the name of the
payee. It seems a fine, simple scheme, one that might have been adopted
by the government long ago; but the idea has been advanced in one form
or another several times since then, and still remains at this writing
unadopted. He wrote John Hay about it, remarking at the close that the
government officials would probably not care to buy it as soon as they
found they couldn't kill Christians with it.

He prepared a lengthy article on the subject, in dialogue form, making
it all very clear and convincing, but for some reason none of the
magazines would take it. Perhaps it seemed too easy, too simple, too
obvious. Great ideas, once developed, are often like that.

CCV. SPEECHES THAT WERE NOT MADE

In a volume of Mark Twain's collected speeches there is one entitled
"German for the Hungarians--Address at the jubilee Celebration of the
Emancipation of the Hungarian Press, March 26, 1899." An introductory
paragraph states that the ministers and members of Parliament were
present, and that the subject was the "Ausgleich"--i.e., the arrangement
for the apportionment of the taxes between Hungary and Austria. The
speech as there set down begins:

Now that we are all here together I think that it will be a good
idea to arrange the Ausgleich. If you will act for Hungary I shall
be quite willing to act for Austria, and this is the very time for
it.

It is an excellent speech, full of good-feeling and good-humor, but it
was never delivered. It is only a speech that Mark Twain intended to
deliver, and permitted to be copied by a representative of the press
before he started for Budapest.

It was a grand dinner, brilliant and inspiring, and when, Mark Twain was
presented to that distinguished company he took a text from something
the introducer had said and became so interested in it that his prepared
speech wholly disappeared from his memory.

I think I will never embarrass myself with a set speech again [he wrote
Twichell]. My memory is old and rickety and cannot stand the strain.
But I had this luck. What I did was to furnish a text for a part of
the splendid speech which was made by the greatest living orator of
the European world--a speech which it was a great delight to listen to,
although I did not understand any word of it, it being in Hungarian. I
was glad I came, it was a great night, & I heard all the great men in
the German tongue.

The family accompanied Clemens to Budapest, an