“There’s the Britannica,” continued Mark, jumping up. He found a paragraph under the caption of “Elizabeth” that tickled him immensely. “Read this, and call me a liar if you dare.”
The paragraph states that there was “some physical defect” in Elizabeth’s make-up, that she was “masculine in mind and temperament,” likewise, that no man ever lost his head over her as they did over Mary of Scots.
“’Nuff said on the score of love-making and lying,” concluded Mark. “’Nuff for the present, I mean; but here is another thing. We all know there is only one Hetty Green, that there never was another. Yet this here Elizabeth, so called—i. e., the man who impersonated her—was as clever a financier as John D. Rockefeller. As John D. gobbled up all the oil in creation, or out of it, so Elizabeth, so called, lapped up all the gold, minted and otherwise. Up to the sixties and seventies (of the sixteenth century) Spain had an absolute monopoly of the yellow and white metals, you know. When the person called Elizabeth died, all the gold of the world was in English hands, and, besides, England dominated all the ocean trade routes, where formerly the Spanish flag had been unchallenged.”
“As circumstantial evidence, can’t be beat,” I suggested timidly, “but—”
“You remind me of the cat that bolted a whole box of Seidlitz powders and then had no more judgment than to lie under the open hydrant,” exploded Mark. “Why don’t you ask me to trot out Elizabeth in an Andy Carnegie Highland costume, kilts and all? There will be missing links, plenty of them, after all these years, that goes without saying, but it’s a great story, nevertheless. Needs a hunk of brain, though, to puzzle it out to its logical conclusion.”
Soon after this conversation, the Clemenses went to Italy, and for some little time I expected to hear from Mark further on the Elizabeth legend. But the yarn seems to have slipped his memory, and as I found him engrossed in matters of the moment, I didn’t try to revive his interest in one so remote.
But I have often wondered whether, or not, his many unpublished writings show that he brought “his hunk of brains” to work on unsexing Elizabeth.
MARK—THE SLEIGHT-OF-HAND MAN
Minister William Walter Phelps gave a dinner to the Clemenses in Frankfort, when Mark Twain and Livy were staying at a nearby watering place, but Mrs. Clemens was not well enough to attend—or, as Mark whispered to Mr. Phelps—was unwilling to go, being afraid that he might disgrace the family by some practical joke. So Mark had it all his own way and enjoyed his freedom hugely, keeping all in a roar.
Finally, Dr. Von Something-or-Other tried to get in a word edgewise and abruptly asked Mark what he thought of the European equilibrium.