The £1,000,000 bank-note, and other new storiesTwain, Mark
General
The £1,000,000 bank-note, and other new stories
Twain, Mark
American essays -- 19th century; American fiction -- 19th century; Humorous stories, American
We had lost our good rooms, but we got some others which were pretty
scattering, but would answer. I judged things would brighten now, but
the Head of the Expedition said, ‘Send up the trunks.’ It made me feel
pretty cold. There was a doubtful something about that trunk business. I
was almost sure of it. I was going to suggest——
But a wave of the hand sufficiently restrained me, and I was informed
that we would now camp for three days and see if we could rest up.
I said all right, never mind ringing; I would go down and attend to the
trunks myself. I got a cab and went straight to Mr. Charles Natural’s
place, and asked what order it was I had left there.
‘To send seven trunks to the hotel.’
‘And were you to bring any back?’
‘No.’
‘You are sure I didn’t tell you to bring back seven that would be found
piled in the lobby?’
‘Absolutely sure you didn’t.’
‘Then the whole fourteen are gone to Zurich or Jericho or somewhere, and
there is going to be more débris around that hotel when the
Expedition——’
I didn’t finish, because my mind was getting to be in a good deal of a
whirl, and when you are that way you think you have finished a sentence
when you haven’t, and you go mooning and dreaming away, and the first
thing you know you get run over by a dray or a cow or something.
I left the cab there—I forgot it—and on my way back I thought it all out
and concluded to resign, because otherwise I should be nearly sure to be
discharged. But I didn’t believe it would be a good idea to resign in
person; I could do it by message. So I sent for Mr. Ludi and explained
that there was a courier going to resign on account of incompatibility
or fatigue or something, and as he had four or five vacant days, I would
like to insert him into that vacancy if he thought he could fill it.
When everything was arranged I got him to go up and say to the
Expedition that, owing to an error made by Mr. Natural’s people, we were
out of trunks here, but would have plenty in Zurich, and we’d better
take the first train, freight, gravel, or construction, and move right
along.
He attended to that and came down with an invitation for me to go
up—yes, certainly; and, while we walked along over to the bank to get
money, and collect my cigars and tobacco, and to the cigar shop to trade
back the lottery tickets and get my umbrella, and to Mr. Natural’s to
pay that cab and send it away, and to the county jail to get my rubbers
and leave p. p. c. cards for the Mayor and Supreme Court, he described
the weather to me that was prevailing on the upper levels there with the
Expedition, and I saw that I was doing very well where I was.
I stayed out in the woods till 4 P.M., to let the weather moderate, and
then turned up at the station just in time to take the three o’clock
express for Zurich along with the Expedition, now in the hands of Ludi,
who conducted its complex affairs with little apparent effort or
inconvenience.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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