a Bible for ten thousand verses. Sam came up one day with his
ten yellow tickets, and everybody knew he had not said a verse, but had
just got them by trading with the boys. But he received his Bible with
all the serious air of a diligent student!"

Mark Twain, save when in humorous vein, has never pretended that his
success was due to any marvellous qualities of mind, any indefatigable
industry, any innate energy and perseverance. I have good reason to
recall his favourite theory, which he was fond of expounding, to the
effect that circumstance is man's master. He likened circumstance to
the attraction of gravity; and declared that while it is man's privilege
to argue with circumstance, as it is the honourable privilege of the
falling body to argue with the attraction of gravity, it does no good:
man has to obey. Circumstance has as its working partner man's
temperament, his natural disposition. Temperament is not the creation
of man, but an innate quality; over it he has no authority; for its acts
he cannot be held responsible. It cannot be permanently changed or even
modified. No power can keep it modified. For it is inherent and
enduring, as unchanging as the lines upon the thumb or the conformation
of the skull. Throughout his life, circumstance seemed like a watchful
spirit, switching his temperament into those channels of experience and
development leading unerringly to the career of the author.

The death of Judge Clemens was the first link in the long chain of
circumstance--for his son was at once taken from school and apprenticed
to the editor and proprietor of the Hannibal Courier. He was allowed
the usual emolument of the office apprentice, "board and clothes, but no
money"; and even at that, though the board was paid, the clothes rarely
materialized. Several weeks later his brother Orion returned to
Hannibal, and in 1850 brought out a little paper called the 'Hannibal
Journal.' He took Sam out of the Courier office and engaged him for the
Journal at $3.50 a week--though he was never able to pay a cent of the
wages. One of Mark's fellow-townsmen once confessed: "Yes, I knew him
when he was a boy. He was a printer's devil--I think that's what they
called him--and they didn't miss it." At a banquet some years ago, Mark
Twain aptly described at length his experiences as a printer's
apprentice. There were a thousand and one menial services he was called
upon to perform. If the subscribers paid