the ground again, and got a second word and a second figure and was told their places in the sentences and the sums; and so on and so on. He went over the ground again and again until he had collected all the parts
of the sums and all the parts of the sentences--and all in disorder, of
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course, not in their proper rotation. This had occupied two hours.
The Brahmin now sat silent and thinking, a while, then began and repeated all the sentences, placing the words in their proper order, and untangled
the disordered arithmetical problems and gave accurate answers to them all.
In the beginning he had asked the company to throw almonds at him during the two hours, he to remember how many each gentleman had thrown; but none were thrown, for the Viceroy said that the test would be a
sufficiently severe strain without adding that burden to it.
General Grant had a fine memory for all kinds of things, including even names and faces, and I could have furnished an instance of it if I had thought of it. The first time I ever saw him was early in his first term
as President. I had just arrived in Washington from the Pacific coast, a
stranger and wholly unknown to the public, and was passing the White House one morning when I met a friend, a Senator from Nevada. He asked me if I would like to see the President. I said I should be very glad;
so we entered. I supposed that the President would be in the midst of a crowd, and that I could look at him in peace and security from a distance, as another stray cat might look at another king. But it was in
the morning, and the Senator was using a privilege of his office which I
had not heard of--the privilege of intruding upon the Chief Magistrate's working hours. Before I knew it, the Senator and I were in the presence, and there was none there but we three. General Grant got slowly up from his table, put his pen down, and stood before me with the iron expression of a man who had not smiled for seven years, and was not intending to smile for another seven. He looked me steadily in the eyes--mine lost
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confidence and fell. I had never confronted a great man before, and was
in a miserable state of funk and inefficiency. The Senator said:--
"Mr. President, may I have the privilege of introducing Mr. Clemens?"
The President gave my hand an unsympathetic wag and dropped it. He did not say a word but just stood. In my trouble I could not think of
anything to say, I merely wanted to resign. There was an awkward pause, a dreary pause, a horrible pause. Then I thought of something, and looked up into that unyielding face, and said timidly:--
"Mr. President, I--I am embarrassed. Are you?"
His face broke--just a little--a wee glimmer, the momentary flicker of a summer-lightning smile, seven years ahead of time--and I was out and gone as soon as it was.
Ten years passed away before I saw him the second time. Meantime I was become better known; and was one of the people appointed to respond to toasts at the banquet given to General Grant in Chicago--by the Army of the Tennessee when he came back from his tour around the world. I arrived late at night and got up late in the morning. All the corridors
of the hotel were crowded with people waiting to get a glimpse of General Grant when he should pass to the place whence he was to review the great procession. I worked my way by the suite of packed drawing-rooms, and at the corner of the house I found a window open where there was a roomy
platform decorated with flags, and carpeted. I stepped out on it, and
saw below me millions of people blocking all the streets, and other millions caked together in all the windows and on all the house-tops
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around. These masses took me for General Grant, and broke into volcanic explosions and cheers; but it was a good place to see the procession, and
I stayed. Presently I heard the distant blare of military music, and far up the street I saw the procession come in sight, cleaving its way through the huzzaing multitudes, with Sheridan, the most martial
figure of the War, riding at its head in the dress uniform of a
Lieutenant-General.
And now General Grant, arm-in-arm with Major Carter Harrison, stepped out on the platform, followed two and two by the badged and uniformed
reception committee. General Grant was looking exactly as he had looked upon that trying occasion of ten years before--all iron and bronze
self-possession. Mr. Harrison came over and led me to the General and formally introduced me. Before I could put together the proper remark, General Grant said--
"Mr. Clemens, I am not embarrassed. Are you?"--and that little seven-year smile twinkled across his face again.
Seventeen years have gone by since then, and to-day, in New York, the streets are a crush of people who are there to honor the remains of the great soldier as they pass to their final resting-place under the
monument; and the air is heavy with dirges and the boom of artillery, and all the millions of America are thinking of the man who restored the Union and the flag, and gave to democratic government a new lease of
life, and, as we may hope and do believe, a permanent place among the
beneficent institutions of men.
We had one game in the ship which was a good time-passer--at least it was
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at night in the smoking-room when the men were getting freshened up from the day's monotonies and dullnesses. It was the completing of
non-complete stories. That is to say, a man would tell all of a story except the finish, then the others would try to supply the ending out of their own invention. When every one who wanted a chance had had it, the
man who had introduced the story would give it its original ending--then you could take your choice. Sometimes the new endings turned out to be better than the old one. But the story which called out the most
persistent and determined and ambitious effort was one which had no ending, and so there was nothing to compare the new-made endings with. The man who told it said he could furnish the particulars up to a certain point only, because that was as much of the tale as he knew. He had read
it in a volume of sketches twenty-five years ago, and was interrupted
before the end was reached. He would give any one fifty dollars who would finish the story to the satisfaction of a jury to be appointed by ourselves. We appointed a jury and wrestled with the tale. We invented plenty of endings, but the jury voted them all down. The jury was right. It was a tale which the author of it may possibly have completed satisfactorily, and if he really had that good fortune I would like to
know what the ending was. Any ordinary man will find that the story's
strength is in its middle, and that there is apparently no way to transfer it to the close, where of course it ought to be. In substance the storiette was as follows:
John Brown, aged thirty-one, good, gentle, bashful, timid, lived in a quiet village in Missouri. He was superintendent of the Presbyterian Sunday-school. It was but a humble distinction; still, it was his only
official one, and he was modestly proud of it and was devoted to its work
and its interests. The extreme kindliness of his nature was recognized
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by all; in fact, people said that he was made entirely out of good
impulses and bashfulness; that he could always be counted upon for help when it was needed, and for bashfulness both when it was needed and when it wasn't.
Mary Taylor, twenty-three, modest, sweet, winning, and in character and person beautiful, was all in all to him. And he was very nearly all in
all to her. She was wavering, his