ssion on conscience. Then said Mark Twain,
and his words are mighty and to be remembered:--

"Your conscience is a nuisance. A conscience is like a child. If you pet
it and play with it and let it have everything that it wants, it becomes
spoiled and intrudes on all your amusements and most of your griefs.
Treat your conscience as you would treat anything else. When it is
rebellious, spank it--be severe with it, argue with it, prevent it from
coming to play with you at all hours, and you will secure a good
conscience; that is to say, a properly trained one. A spoiled one simply
destroys all the pleasure in life. I think I have reduced mine to
order. At least, I haven't heard from it for some time. Perhaps I have
killed it from over-severity. It's wrong to kill a child, but, in spite
of all I have said, a conscience differs from a child in many ways.
Perhaps it's best when it's dead."

Here he told me a little--such things as a man may tell a stranger--of
his early life and upbringing, and in what manner he had been influenced
for good by the example of his parents. He spoke always through his
eyes, a light under the heavy eyebrows; anon crossing the room with a
step as light as a girl's, to show me some book or other; then resuming
his walk up and down the room, puffing at the cob pipe. I would have
given much for nerve enough to demand the gift of that pipe--value, five
cents when new. I understood why certain savage tribes ardently desired
the liver of brave men slain in combat. That pipe would have given me,
perhaps, a hint of his keen insight into the souls of men. But he never
laid it aside within stealing reach.

Once, indeed, he put his hand on my shoulder. It was an investiture of
the Star of India, blue silk, trumpets, and diamond-studded jewel, all
complete. If hereafter, in the changes and chances of this mortal life,
I fall to cureless ruin, I will tell the superintendent of the workhouse
that Mark Twain once put his hand on my shoulder; and he shall give me a
room to myself and a double allowance of paupers' tobacco.

"I never read novels myself," said he, "except when the popular
persecution forces me to--when people plague me to know what I think of
the last book that every one is reading."

"And how did the latest persecution affect you?"

"Robert?" said he, interrogatively.

I nodded.

"I read it, of course, for the workmanship. That made me think I had
neglected novels too long--that there mig