I was working off these humorous brilliancies on him and getting no return—not a scintillation in his eye, not a spark of recognition of what I was doing there. I was almost in despair.
I thought I might try him once more, so I said “Now, I am also a member of the human race. Will you let me have the ten per cent. off for that?” He set it down, and never smiled.
Well, I gave it up. I said: “There is my card with my address on it, but I have not any money with me. Will you please send the bill to Hartford?” I took up the book and was going away.
He said: “Wait a minute. There is forty cents coming to you.”
When I met him in the tax office I thought maybe I could make something again, but I could not. But I had not any idea I could when I came, and as it turned out I did get off entirely free.
I put up my hand and made a statement. It gave me a good deal of pain to do that. I was not used to it. I was born and reared in the higher circles of Missouri, and there we don’t do such things—didn’t in my time, but we have got that little matter settled—got a sort of tax levied on me.
Then he touched me. Yes, he touched me this time, because he cried—cried! He was moved to tears to see that I, a virtuous person only a year before, after immersion for one year—during one year in the New York morals—had no more conscience than a millionaire.
THE DAY WE CELEBRATE
ADDRESS AT THE FOURTH-OF-JULY DINNER OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY,
LONDON, 1899.