Omaha daily bee., 1906-05-13
FUDDLED BY A COCKTAIL
Mark Twain's Account Of HIs FIRST
interview with Artemus
ward.

had never seen him before He brought
letters Of Introduction from mutual friends
in San Francisco and by invitation
breakfssted with him Il was almost re-
lgion, there in silver mines. to precede
such a meal with cocktails. Artemus. with
the true cosmopolitan instinct always de-
TERED to the customs of the country he was
in, and so he ordered three OF those ahuni-
nations. Kingston was present I am
match for nearly any beverage you can
mention. except whisky cocktail, and
therefore ! said l would rather not drink
one said it would go right to my head
and confuse me so that ] would be in a
helpless tangle in ten minutes. | did not
want to act like lunatic before strangers
but Artemus gently insisted and I drank the
reasonable mixture under protest, and felt
ali the time that | was doing q thing I
might be sorry for. In a minute or two
began to imagine that my ideas were
clouded. ! waited in great anxiety for the
conversation to open. with a sort Of vague
hope that my understanding would prove
clear, after all, and my misgivngs ground
less,
Artemus dropped an unimportant remark
or two and assumed a look Of superhuman
earnestness and made the following as
founding speech. He said:
Now, there is one thing | ought TO ask
you before ! forget it. You have been in
silveriand-here in NeSada-two or three
years and OF course your position on the
daily press has made it necessary for you
to go down in the mines and examine them
| carefully in detail, and therefore you know
all about the silver mining business. Now,
what / want to get at isis, well, ia the
I urGW
know For instance: Now, as | under
stand il. the vein which contains the silver
is sandwiched in between castings Of gran
ite and runs along the ground and sticks
up like curbstone.
We'll take a vein forty feet thick, for
example eighty for that matter or even
| lo0-say you go down on 1t with a shaft.
straight down, you know. or with what you
| call the inclines.' maybe go down 500 feet
or maybe you don't go down but 200 any
| way, you go down. and all the time this
| vein grows narrower, when the castings
| come nearer or approach each other, you
| may say-that IT, when they do approach,
| which Of course they do not always do.
! particularly in cases where the nature of
the formation is such that they stand apart
| wider than they otherwise would. and
! which geology has failed to account for, al
! though everything in that science goes to
prove that all things being equal It would
II it did not, or would not certainly If it
| did. and then OF course they are. Do you
think Il is?"
l said to myself Now. 7 just knew
how It would be-that whisky cocktail has
done the business for me; ] don't under
stand any more than a clam" And then
said aloud: "I-I-that is-if you don't
mind would you-would you say that over
again? 1 ought"
"Oh, certainly, certainly! You see, I am
very unfamiliar with the subject and per-
haps l don't present my case clearly, but
! l."
mo, mono. no-you state It plain
enough, but that vile cocktail has muddled
me little. But I wll-no, I do under
stand for that matter; but would get the
hang OF It all the better II you went over
it again. and I'll pay better attention this
time"
| He said: why, what l was after, was
this: 0ere he became even more fear
fully impressive than ever. and empha-
sized each particular point by checking it
( off on his finger ends.) This vein, or
| lode. or ledge. or whatever you call IT,.
runs along between two layers of granite.
just the same as II It were q sandwich.
Very well Now, suppose YOU go down on
that say 1000 feet or maybe leo, II
doesn't really matter, before you drift;
and then you start your drifts. some OF
them across the ledge, and others along
the length OF 1t. where the sulphurets-I
believe they call them suphurets though
why they should. considering that so far
as I can see the main dependence of a
miner does not lie, some suppose, but in
which II cannot be successfully main
tained wherein the same should continue,
while part and parcel OF the same ore not
committed to either in the sense referred
to, whereas, under different circumstances.
the most inexperienced among us could
not detect 1t II 1t were, or might overlook
II II It did, or scorn the very idea OF such
a thing. even though It were palpably
demonstrated as such. Am l right"
I said sorrowfuly: Il feel ashamed OF
myself. Mr.. Ward. ! know / ought TO un-
derstand you perfectly well but you see
that Internal whisky cocktail has got into
my head, and now ! cannot understand
even the simplest proposition. | told you
how It would be"
"Oh. don't mind it, don't mind II; the
fault was my own, no doubt-though l did
think it was clear enough for"
Don't say a word. Clear! Why you
stated It as clear as the sun to anybody
but an AFFECT idiot but its that con.