s a horse, or vehicle of
any description. It was a raw, windy day, very unlike the exceptionally
hot April day when the routed redcoats, pursued by the Colonials, fled
panting back to Boston, with "their tongues hanging out like dogs," but
we could not take due comfort in the vision of their discomfiture; we
could almost envy them, for they had at least got to Concord. A swift
procession of coaches, carriages, and buggies, all going to Concord,
passed us, inert and helpless, on the sidewalk in the peculiarly cold mud
of North Cambridge. We began to wonder if we might not stop one of them
and bribe it to take us, but we had not the courage to try, and Clemens
seized the opportunity to begin suffering with an acute indigestion,
which gave his humor a very dismal cast. I felt keenly the shame of
defeat, and the guilt of responsibility for our failure, and when a gay
party of students came toward us on the top of a tally ho, luxuriously
empty inside, we felt that our chance had come, and our last chance. He
said that if I would stop them and tell them who I was they would gladly,
perhaps proudly, give us passage; I contended that if with his far vaster
renown he would approach them, our success would be assured. While we
stood, lost in this "contest of civilities," the coach passed us, with
gay notes blown from the horns of the students, and then Clemens started
in pursuit, encouraged with shouts from the merry party who could not
imagine who was trying to run them down, to a rivalry in speed. The
unequal match could end only in one way, and I am glad I cannot recall
what he said when he came back to me. Since then I have often wondered
at the grief which would have wrung those blithe young hearts if they
could have known that they might have had the company of Mark Twain to
Concord that day and did not.

We hung about, unavailingly, in the bitter wind a while longer, and then
slowly, very slowly, made our way home. We wished to pass as much time
as possible, in order to give probability to the deceit we intended to
practise, for we could not bear to own ourselves baffled in our boasted
wisdom of taking the train at Porter's Station, and had agreed to say
that we had been to Concord and got back. Even after coming home to my
house, we felt that our statement would be wanting in verisimilitude
without further delay, and we crept quietly into my library, and made up
a roaring fire on the hearth, and thawed ourselves out in the