as
suggested."

A choice example, by the way, of Mark Twain's best humor, with its
perfectly timed pause, and the afterthought. Most humorists would have
been content to end with the statement, "I could have gone earlier."
Only Mark Twain could have added that final exquisite touch--"it was
suggested."

Mark Twain was nearing seventy. With the 30th of November (1905) he
would complete the scriptural limitation, and the president of his
publishing-house, Col. George Harvey, of Harper's, proposed a great
dinner for him in celebration of his grand maturity. Clemens would have
preferred a small assembly in some snug place, with only his oldest and
closest friends. Colonel Harvey had a different view. He had given a
small, choice dinner to Mark Twain on his sixty-seventh birthday; now it
must be something really worth while--something to outrank any former
literary gathering. In order not to conflict with Thanksgiving holidays,
the 5th of December was selected as the date. On that evening, two
hundred American and English men and women of letters assembled in
Delmonico's great banquet-hall to do honor to their chief. What an
occasion it was! The tables of gay diners and among them Mark Twain, his
snow-white hair a gleaming beacon for every eye. Then, by and by,
presented by William Dean Howells, he rose to speak. Instantly the
brilliant throng was on its feet, a shouting billow of life, the white
handkerchiefs flying foam-like on its crest. It was a supreme moment!
The greatest one of them all hailed by their applause as he scaled the
mountaintop.

Never did Mark Twain deliver a more perfect address than he gave that
night. He began with the beginning, the meagerness of that little hamlet
that had seen his birth, and sketched it all so quaintly and delightfully
that his hearers laughed and shouted, though there was tenderness under
it, and often the tears were just beneath the surface. He told of his
habits of life, how he had reached seventy by following a plan of living
that would probably kill anybody else; how, in fact, he believed he had
no valuable habits at all. Then, at last, came that unforgetable close:

"Threescore years and ten!

"It is the scriptural statute of limitations. After that you owe no
active duties; for you the strenuous life is over. You are a time-
expired man, to use Kipling's military phrase: you have served your
term, well or less well, and you are mustered out. You are be