The old man merely glared at him.
“It is not a valuable watch. It is a worthless watch.”
“But I gave six francs for it in Paris.”
“Still, it is a cheap watch,” was the unsmiling answer. Defeat waits somewhere for every conqueror.
Which recalls another instance, though of a different sort. On one of his many voyages to America, he was sitting on deck in a steamer-chair when two little girls stopped before him. One of them said, hesitatingly:
“Are you Mr. Mark Twain?”
“Why, yes, dear, they call me that.”
“Won't you please say something funny?”
And for the life of him he couldn't make the required remark.
In one of his letters to Twichell of that summer, Clemens wrote of the arrival there of the colored jubilee singers, always favorites of his, and of his great delight in them.