The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1907-07-10
Walk IWAlN'S ST0GiES.
Ths Effect They Produced on the After
Dinner Festivities.

The Effect They Produced on the After
Dinner Festivities.
One night at the Hartford Monday
Evening club meeting George, our col
ored butler, came to me when the sup
per was nearly over, and noticed that
he was pale Normally his complexion
was j clear black and very handsome,
but now it had modified to old amber.
He said:
Mr.. Clemens. what are we going to
do? There is not / cigar in the house
but those old Wheeling long mines.
Can't nobody smoke them but You!
They kill at thirty yards 1t is too
late to telephone-we couldn't get any
cigars out from town-what can we
do? Amt it best to say nothing and
let on that we didn't Think
"No." I said. that would not pc
honest. Fetch out the long niheS,
which he did. -,
I had lust come across those IONS
mines 4 few days or i WeeA '.1o..'
hadn't seen Il long nine 1or yea D
who,, vas 4 cub pilot on the Mis-
sissinpi in the late tift!es hao l"u !"
rre,t affection for them. because the'
80 NOT only-to my mind-pertect.
h,,- Won could get 4 basketful OF them
for = cent-or 4 dime They didn't use
cents out there in those days. so when
saw them advertised in Hartford l
sent for thousand at once. They
came out to me in badly battered and
disreputable looking old square paste
board boxes, 200 in Il box. George
brought box, which was caved in on
all sides. looking the worst it could,
and began to pass them around The
conversation had been brilliantly ami
mated up to that moment. but now a
frost fell upon the company-that IS 10
say. not all Of Z sudden, but the frost
fell upon each man as he took up a
cigar and held it poised in the air-and
there. in the middle. his sentence broke
off That kind Of thing went on all
around the table until when George
had completed his crime the whole
place was full Of thick solemnlty and
silence.
Those men began to light the cigars
Rev: DR.. Parker was the first man te
light. Ee took three or four heroic
whiffs. then gave it up. He got up
with the remark that be had to 80 tc
the bedside of sick parishioner. He
started out. Rev. DR.. Burton was the
next man. He took only one whln
and followed. Parker. BE furnished
pretext. and YOU could see by ths
sound of his voice that he didn't thlnE
much of the prctext and was ve-ec
with Parker for getting in ahead viii
fictitious ailing client. Rev. Mr.
Twichell followed and said he had K
90 now because he must take the mid
night train for Boston. Boston was
the first place that occurred to him,
suppose.
It was only a quarter to IL whe1
they began to distribute preteXtS. y
ten minutes to IL all those people were
out of the house. When nobody wa:
left but George and me, l was cheer
full. I had no compunctions of con
science, no griefs Of any kind. Bu
George was beyond speech because h'
held the honor and credit Of the famil!
above his own, and he was ASHAMED
! that this smirch had been put upon it
l told him to so to bed and try to sleel
it off. I went to bed myself. At break
fast in the morning when George VIC:
passing cup Of coffee I saw it trem
BILE in his hand. I knew by that sigI
that there was something on his mind
He brought the cup to me and aske(
impressively:
Mr.. Clemens, how far is it from th'
front door to the upper gate?''s
/, said, 1T is a hundred. and twenty
Ave steps"
He said, Mr.. Clemens, you can star
at the front door. and you car g
plumb to the upper gate and tread OF
one Of them cigars every time
1t wasn't true in detail, but IN essen
tials it was.-Mark Twain's Autobios
raphy in North American Review.