to be greedy on your behalf in wishing the health of our
honored and, in view of his great age, our revered guest. I
will not say, 'Oh King, live forever!' but 'Oh King, live as
long as you like!'" [Amid great applause and waving of napkins
all rise and drink to Mark Twain.]

Well, if I made that joke, it is the best one I ever made, and it is in
the prettiest language, too.--I never can get quite to that height. But
I appreciate that joke, and I shall remember it--and I shall use it when
occasion requires.

I have had a great many birthdays in my time. I remember the first one
very well, and I always think of it with indignation; everything was
so crude, unaesthetic, primeval. Nothing like this at all. No proper
appreciative preparation made; nothing really ready. Now, for a person
born with high and delicate instincts--why, even the cradle wasn't
whitewashed--nothing ready at all. I hadn't any hair, I hadn't any
teeth, I hadn't any clothes, I had to go to my first banquet just like
that. Well, everybody came swarming in. It was the merest little bit
of a village--hardly that, just a little hamlet, in the backwoods
of Missouri, where nothing ever happened, and the people were all
interested, and they all came; they looked me over to see if there
was anything fresh in my line. Why, nothing ever happened in that
village--I--why, I was the only thing that had really happened there
for months and months and months; and although I say it myself that
shouldn't, I came the nearest to being a real event that had happened in
that village in more than, two years. Well, those people came, they came
with that curiosity which is so provincial, with that frankness which
also is so provincial, and they examined me all around and gave their
opinion. Nobody asked them, and I shouldn't have minded if anybody had
paid me a compliment, but nobody did. Their opinions were all just green
with prejudice, and I feel those opinions to this day. Well, I stood
that as long as--well, you know I was born courteous, and I stood it to
the limit. I stood it an hour, and then the worm turned. I was the warm;
it was my turn to turn, and I turned. I knew very well the strength of
my position; I knew that I was the only spotlessly pure and innocent
person in that whole town, and I came out and said so: And they could
not say a word. It was so true: They blushed; they were embarrassed.
Well, that was the first