“That would only make me more conspicuous.”
“How about a disguise?”
“Yes,” he said, “I might put on a red wig and false whiskers and change my name, but I couldn't disguise my drawling speech and they'd find me out.”
It was amusing, but it was rather sad, too. His fame had deprived him of valued privileges.
He talked of many things during these little excursions. Once he told how he had successively advised his nephew, Moffett, in the matter of obtaining a desirable position. Moffett had wanted to become a reporter. Clemens devised a characteristic scheme. He said:
“I will get you a place on any newspaper you may select if you promise faithfully to follow out my instructions.”
The applicant agreed, eagerly enough. Clemens said:
“Go to the newspaper of your choice. Say that you are idle and want work, that you are pining for work—longing for it, and that you ask no wages, and will support yourself. All that you ask is work. That you will do anything, sweep, fill the inkstands, mucilage-bottles, run errands, and be generally useful. You must never ask for wages. You must wait until the offer of wages comes to you. You must work just as faithfully and just as eagerly as if you were being paid for it. Then see what happens.”
The scheme had worked perfectly. Young Moffett had followed his instructions to the letter. By and by he attracted attention. He was employed in a variety of ways that earned him the gratitude and the confidence of the office. In obedience to further instructions, he began to make short, brief, unadorned notices of small news matters that came under his eye and laid them on the city editor's desk. No pay was asked; none was expected. Occasionally one of the items was used. Then, of course, it happened, as it must sooner or later at a busy time, that he was given a small news assignment. There was no trouble about his progress after that. He had won the confidence of the management and shown that he was not afraid to work.
The plan had been variously tried since, Clemens said, and he could not remember any case in which it had failed. The idea may have grown out of his own pilot apprenticeship on the river, when cub pilots not only received no salary, but paid for the privilege of learning.