mentioned here; yet upon analysis it will be discovered that
the humour of Mark Twain is at least first cousin to that which produced
Sir Roger de Coverley and Rip Van Winkle and The Stout Gentleman."

The details of the Gambetta-Fourtou duel, in which Mark played a
somewhat frightened second, have furnished untold amusement to
thousands. And his description of the inadvertent _faux pas_ he
committed at his first public lecture is humorous for any age and
society. The sign announcing the lecture read--"Doors open at 7. The
Trouble will begin at 8." For three days, Mark had been in a state of
frightful suspense. Once his lecture had seemed humorous; but as the
day approached, it seemed to him to be but the dreariest of fooling,
without a vestige of real fun. He was so panic-stricken that he
persuaded three of his friends, who were giants in stature, genial and
stormy voiced, to act as claquers and pound loudly at the faintest
suspicion of a joke. He bribed Sawyer, a half-drunk man, who had a
laugh hung on a hair-trigger, to get off, naturally and easily during
the course of the evening, as many laughs as he could. He begged a
popular citizen and his wife to take a conspicuous seat in a box, so
that everybody could see them. He explained that when he needed help,
he would turn toward her and smile, as a signal, that he had given birth
to an obscure joke. Then, if ever, was her time--not to investigate,
but to respond!

The fateful night found him in the depths of dejection. But heartened
up by a crowded house, full even to the aisles, he bravely set in and
proceeded to capture the house. His claquers hammered madly whenever
the very feeblest joke showed its head. Sawyer supported their
herculean efforts with bursts of stentorian laughter. As Mark
explained, not without a touch of pride, inferior jokes never fared so
royally before. But his hour of humiliation was at hand. On delivering
a bit of serious matter with impressive unction, to which the audience
listened with rapt interest, he glanced involuntarily, as if for her
approval, at his friend in the box. He remembered the compact, but it
was too late--he smiled in spite of himself. Forth came her ringing
laugh, peal after peal, which touched off the whole audience: the
explosion was immense! Sawyer choked with laughter, and the bludgeons
performed like pile-drivers. The little morsel of pathos was ruined;
but what matter, so long as the audience