CONTENTS
| PAGE | |
| Editor’s Note | [vii] |
| Author’s Preface | [xv] |
| How Mark Would Safeguard England | [25] |
| Mark Philosophized on Willie | [33] |
| Mark—Regicide | [34] |
| The Funniest Speech Mark Ever Heard | [36] |
| Monarchical Atavism | [42] |
| Democratic Mark and the Austrian Aristocracy | [43] |
| Phil Sheridan’s Friend | [45] |
| “Elizabeth Was a He,” Said Mark | [47] |
| Mark, the Sleight-of-hand Man | [55] |
| Mark and the Imperial Mistress | [57] |
| Mark on Lynch Law | [59] |
| Recollections of King Charles and Grant | [62] |
| Mark Missed Gallows-land | [64] |
| Think of Her Sorrows | [66] |
| Breaking the News Gently | [67] |
| Dukes and Unborn Car Horses | [69] |
| “Pa Used to Be a Terrible Man” | [70] |
| Mark on the Berlin Cops | [71] |
| The Sausage Room | [74] |
| Mark’s Glimpse of Schopenhauer | [77] |
| “Murderer” Blucher in Oxford | [86] |
| Mark’s Human Side | [88] |
| An Australian Surprise | [90] |
| Mark in France and Italy | [92] |
| Why Mark Wouldn’t Like to Die Abroad | [93] |
| The Left Hand Didn’t Know | [95] |
| American Humorists | [96] |
| Telepathy or Suggestion | [97] |
| Trying to Be Serious Didn’t Work | [99] |
| Assorted Beauties | [100] |
| Mark’s Children Knew Him | [101] |
| Mark, Dogs, Dagoes, and Cats | [102] |
| The Tragedy of Genius | [103] |
| Kilties and the Lassie | [105] |
| A Wise Provision of Providence | [107] |
| The Awful German Language | [108] |
| Artist or Photographer | [110] |
| Mark Interviewed the Barber about Harry Thaw | [112] |
| His Portrait—a Mirror | [115] |
| Mark, Bismarck, Lincoln, and Darwin | [116] |
| Mark at the Stock Exchange, Vienna | [120] |
| Mark and the Prussian Lieutenant | [121] |
| Mark Studies the Costermonger Language | [123] |
| That Beautiful Funeral | [125] |
| Ada’s Beast of a Man | [126] |
| Jealousy in Lowland | [127] |
| The Troubles of Liz | [128] |
| The French Madame | [130] |
| The Great Disappointment | [134] |
| Rheumatism and Prodding | [137] |
| On Literary Friendships | [138] |
| Bayard Taylor’s German | [139] |
| Genius in Extremis | [140] |
| What May Happen to You after You Are Dead | [143] |
| Kings in Their Birthday Suits | [146] |
| Mark on Lincoln’s Humanity | [147] |
| An English Lover of Kings and a Hater | [150] |
| Mark Got Arrested in Berlin | [154] |
| Books that Weren’t Written | [157] |
| Mark Enjoyed Other Humorists | [160] |
| Mark and the English Hack-writer | [162] |
| Mark Thought Joan of Arc Was Slandered | [164] |
| Running Amuck—Almost | [166] |
| Mark’s Idiomatic Gems | [167] |
| Mark and the Girls that Love a Lord | [168] |
| Mark’s Martyrdom | [173] |
| Slang Not in Mark’s Dictionary | [175] |
| Mark “No Gentleman” | [177] |
| Mark, Poetry, and Art | [178] |
| Mark Sheds Light on English History | [179] |
| Mark Explains Dean Swift | [183] |
| Mark in Tragedy and Comedy | [185] |
| “Ambition Is a Jade that More Than One Man Can Ride” | [190] |
| Mark as a Translator | [192] |
| Mark in England | [194] |
| Why Mark Was Uncomfortable in the King of Sweden’s Presence | [196] |
| Mark’s Idea of High Art | [197] |
| Mark Meets King Leopold—Almost | [199] |
| Sizing Up of Aristocracy by Mark | [201] |
| The Bald-headed Woman | [204] |
| When a Publisher Dines and Wines You | [205] |
| Mark in Politics | [208] |
| Mark on “Royal Honors” | [209] |
| American Women the Prettiest | [212] |
| Where Tay Pay Isn’t Tay Pay | [213] |
| The Man Who Didn’t Get Used to Hanging | [214] |
| Stray Sayings of Mark | [218] |
| Eugene Field and His Troubles in Chicago | [223] |
| More of Eugene Field’s Trials in London | [227] |
| Gene, a “Success of Curiosity” | [230] |
| Dire Consequences of American Horseplay | [233] |
| Field’s Library of Humor | [240] |
| Those German Professors | [241] |
| Eugene Field and Northern Lore | [243] |
| Little Boy Blue | [246] |
PREFACE
To begin with, of course, I don’t claim that all these stories are absolutely first hand. I sometimes jotted down what I heard Mark say, or stored his talk in some compartment of memory, only to hear him repeat the yarn, after a space, in quite different fashion.
“You remind me of Charles II,” I said to him once, referring to that confusing habit of his, and was going to “substantiate” when he interrupted.
“I can guess what you mean, but never mind, for all you know I may be Charlie’s reincarnation. Charles, you wanted to say, had only three stories up his sleeve and these he told over and over again for new ones to Nell and the rest of the bunch. And varied them so cleverly and disguised them so well, that his audience never got on to the fact that His Majesty had been chestnutting. As for me, I can only hope that I will succeed as well as Charlie did.”
In Berlin I once heard Susie Clemens—ill-fated, talented girl, who died so young—say to her father: “Grouchy again! They do say that you can be funny when company is around—too bad that you don’t consider Henry Fisher company.”
“Out of the mouth of sucklings,” quoth Clemens and gave Susie the twenty marks she was after, and he kissed her: “Good-by, little blackmailer, and don’t tell your mamma how you worked that fool papa of yours.”
Indeed, Mark was not always the humorist the public mind pictures him. Very often, for long hours at a time, in our intercourse extending over thirty years, he was decidedly serious, while at other times he grumbled at everything and everybody. His initial object in choosing me for his “bear-leader” was to add to his stock of knowledge on foreign affairs and to correct erroneous ideas he might have acquired from books. Since I had resided many years on the Continent, and had command of the languages he lacked, he asked me to pilot him around Berlin, Paris, and Vienna, and on such occasions his talk was more often deep and learned than laughter-provoking. In an afternoon or morning’s work—getting atmosphere, i. e., “the hang of things” German or Austrian, as Mark called it—he sometimes dropped two or three memorable witticisms, but familiar intercourse in the long run left no doubt of the fact that a very serious vein bordering on melancholy underlay his mask of bonhomie. On the other hand a closer or more intelligent student of life never lived. He was as conscientious, as true, and as simple as Washington Irving.
Those occasional lapses into dejection notwithstanding, it struck me that Mark extracted his humor out of the bounty and abundance of his own nature. Hence his tinkling grotesquerie, unconventionality, whimsicality, play of satire, and shrieking irony, between touches of deep seriousness.