文章简介

The American Claimant

Mark Twain

1892

Illustrated by Dan Beard

This e-book was created for MobileRead (www.mobileread.com).

The text is based on the Project Gutenberg [PG] version of “The American Claimant” (EText-No. 3179). The images are extracted from the scans available at the Internet Archive [IA] (Call number 33713642). The PG text was checked and corrected against the IA version for typography, formatting and errors. The illustrations are contrast-enhanced, cleaned up and included in the appropriate part of the text. This e-book does not reproduce any particular printed edition, but has gone through its own editing process.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Contents

List of Illustrations

Explanatory

The Weather in This Book

Chapter I

The Earl of Rossmore vs. the American Claimant – Viscount Berkeley proposes to change places with the Claimant – The Claimant’s letter – Lord Berkeley decides to visit America

Chapter II

Colonel Mulberry Sellers and his art gallery – He receives a visit from Washington Hawkins – Talking over old times – Washington informs the colonel that he is the congressional delegate from Cherokee Strip.

Chapter III

Mrs. Sellers pronounces the colonel “the same old scheming, generous, good-hearted, moonshiny, hopeful, no-account failure he always was” – He takes in Dan’l and Jinny – The colonel originates “Pigs in the Clover” – He offers one of his art treasures to propitiate Suggs – One-armed Pete; the bank thief

Chapter IV

A Yankee makes an offer for “Pigs in the Clover” – By the death of a relative Sellers becomes the rightful Earl of Rossmore and consequently the American Claimant – Gwendolen is sent for from school – The remains of the late Claimant and brother to be shipped to England – Hawkins and Sellers nail the hatchments on “Rossmore Towers”

Chapter V

Gwendolen’s letter – Her arrival at home – Hawkins is introduced, to his great pleasure – Communication from the bank thief – Hawkins and Sellers have to wait ten days longer before getting the reward – Viscount Berkeley and the late Claimant’s remains start simultaneously from England and America

Chapter VI

Arrival of the remains of late Claimant and brother in England – The usurping earl officiates as chief mourner, and they are laid with their kindred in Cholmondeley church – Sally Sellers a gifted costume-designer – Another communication from the bank thief – Locating him in the New Gadsby – The colonel’s glimpse of One-armed Pete in the elevator – Arrival of Viscount Berkeley at the same hotel

Chapter VII

Viscount Berkeley jots down his “impressions” to date with a quill pen – The destruction of the New Gadsby by fire – Berkeley loses his bearings and escapes with his journaled “impressions” only – Discovery and hasty donning of One-armed Pete’s abandoned wardrobe – Glowing and affecting account in the morning papers of the heroic death of the heir of Rossmore – He will take a new name and start out “incog”

Chapter VIII

The colonel’s grief at the loss of both Berkeley and One-armed Pete – Materialization – Breaking the news to the family – The colonel starts to identify and secure a body (or ashes) to send to the bereaved father

Chapter IX

The usual actress and her diamonds in the hotel fire – The colonel secures three baskets of ashes – Mrs. Sellers forbids their lying in state – Generous hatchments – The ashes to be sent only when the earl sends for them

Chapter X

Lord Berkeley deposits the $500 found in his appropriated clothes – Attends “Mechanics’ Debating Club” – Berkeley (alias Tracy) is glad he came to this country

Chapter XI

No work for Tracy – Cheaper lodgings secured – Sleeping on the roof – “My daughter Hattie” – Tracy receives further “impressions” from Hattie (otherwise “Puss”) – Mr. Barrow appears – And offers to help Tracy find work

Chapter XII

A boarding-house dinner – “No money, no dinner” for Mr. Brady – “How did you come to mount that hat?” – A glimpse of (the supposed) One-armed Pete – Extract from Tracy’s diary

Chapter XIII

Tracy and trades-unions – Unpopularity with fellow-boarders – Which changes to popularity on his punishing Allen – The cablegram

Chapter XIV

“Mechanics’ Debating Club” again – Tracy is comforted by Barrow’s remarks – “Fool or no fool, he would grab it” – “Earldom! oh, yes, take it if it offers”

Chapter XV

“You forgot to pay your board” – “I’ve been robbed” – Mr. Allen among the missing, likewise other things – The cablegram: “Thanks” – Despair of Tracy – “You’ve got to amuse your mind”

Chapter XVI

The collaborative art collection – The artists – “The cannon’s our trademark” – Tracy’s mind is amused

Chapter XVII

No further cablegram – “If those ghastly artists want a confederate, I’m their man” – Tracy taken into partnership – Disappointments of materialization – The phonograph adapted to marine service – Utilization of wasted sewer-gas

Chapter XVIII

The colonel’s project to set Russia free – “I am going to buy Siberia” – The materializee turns up – Being an artist he is invited to restore the colonel’s collection – Which he forthwith begins

Chapter XIX

The perplexities and nobilities of materialization – The materializee eats a couple of apples – Horror of Hawkins and Sellers – “It must be a mistake”

Chapter XX

Tracy’s perplexities with regard to the Claimant’s sanity – The Claimant interviews him – Sally Sellers meets Tracy – A violent case of love at first sight – Pinks

Chapter XXI

Empty painting; empty millinerizing – Tracy’s work satisfactory – Sellers’s new picture of Lord Berkeley – “He is a wobbler” – The unsuccessful dinner-parties – “They flung their arms about each other’s necks”

Chapter XXII

“The materializing has got to stop where it is” – Sally Sellers repudiates “Lady Gwendolen” – The late Lord Berkeley Sally’s hero – “The shady devil [Doubt] had knifed her”

Chapter XXIII

Tracy writes to his father – The rival houses to be united by his marriage to Sally Sellers – The earl decides to “step over and take a hand” – “The course of true love,” etc., as usual – “You an earl’s son! show me the signs”

Chapter XXIV

Time drags heavily for all concerned – Success of “Pigs in the Clover” – Sellers is “fixed” for his temperance lecture – Colonel and Mrs. Sellers start for Europe – Interview of Hawkins and Sally – Tracy an impostor

Chapter XXV

Telegram: “She’s going to marry the materializee” – Interview between Tracy and Sally – Arrival of the usurping earl – “You can have him if you’ll take him” – A quiet wedding at the Towers – Sellers does not join the party to England – Preparing to furnish climates to order

Appendix

Weather for use in this book

List of Illustrations

“And I a usurper – a nameless pauper, a tramp.”

“He was constructing what seemed to be some kind of frail mechanical toy.”

“It must try your patience pretty sharply sometimes.”

One-armed Pete

“Father, I am going to shake hands with Major Hawkins.”

“Must he go down in his spectral night dress?”

“Clah to goodness it’s de fust time I’ve sot eyes on ’em.”

“Parker, assistant editor of the Daily Democrat.”

“How do you do?”

“Both were so paralyzed with joy.”

“It had already happened.”

“His thoughts had been far away from these things.”

“Fool or no fool, he would grab it.”

“No. 5 started a laugh.”

Capt. Saltmarsh and brother of the brush

Wasted sewer-gas

“Eastward, with that great light transfiguring their faces.”

“It was a violent case of mutual love at first sight.”

“Time dragged heavily for both, now.”

“Oh, my God, she’s kissing it!”

“The shady devil had knifed her.”

“You an earl’s son! Show me the signs.”

“My father!”

“Finally there was a quiet wedding at the Towers.”

Finis

Explanatory

The Colonel Mulberry Sellers here re-introduced to the public is the same person who appeared as Eschol Sellers in the first edition of the tale entitled “The Gilded Age,” years ago, and as Beriah Sellers in the subsequent editions of the same book, and finally as Mulberry Sellers in the drama played afterward by John T. Raymond.

The name was changed from Eschol to Beriah to accommodate an Eschol Sellers who rose up out of the vasty deeps of uncharted space and preferred his request – backed by threat of a libel suit – then went his way appeased, and came no more. In the play Beriah had to be dropped to satisfy another member of the race, and Mulberry was substituted in the hope that the objectors would be tired by that time and let it pass unchallenged. So far it has occupied the field in peace; therefore we chance it again, feeling reasonably safe, this time, under shelter of the statute of limitations.

MARK TWAIN.

Hartford, 1891.

The Weather in This Book

No weather will be found in this book. This is an attempt to pull a book through without weather. It being the first attempt of the kind in fictitious literature, it may prove a failure, but it seemed worth the while of some dare-devil person to try it, and the author was in just the mood.

Many a reader who wanted to read a tale through was not able to do it because of delays on account of the weather. Nothing breaks up an author’s progress like having to stop every few pages to fuss-up the weather. Thus it is plain that persistent intrusions of weather are bad for both reader and author.

Of course weather is necessary to a narrative of human experience. That is conceded. But it ought to be put where it will not be in the way; where it will not interrupt the flow of the narrative. And it ought to be the ablest weather that can be had, not ignorant, poor-quality, amateur weather. Weather is a literary specialty, and no untrained hand can turn out a good article of it. The present author can do only a few trifling ordinary kinds of weather, and he cannot do those very good. So it has seemed wisest to borrow such weather as is necessary for the book from qualified and recognized experts – giving credit, of course. This weather will be found over in the back part of the book, out of the way. See Appendix. The reader is requested to turn over and help himself from time to time as he goes along.

Chapter I

It is a matchless morning in rural England. On a fair hill we see a majestic pile, the ivied walls and towers of Cholmondeley Castle, huge relic and witness of the baronial grandeurs of the Middle Ages. This is one of the seats of the Earl of Rossmore, K. G., G. C. B., K. C. M. G., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., who possesses twenty-two thousand acres of English land, owns a parish in London with two thousand houses on its lease-roll, and struggles comfortably along on an income of two hundred thousand pounds a year. The father and founder of this proud old line was William the Conqueror his very self; the mother of it was not inventoried in history by name, she being merely a random episode and inconsequential, like the tanner’s daughter of Falaise.

In a breakfast room of the castle on this breezy fine morning there are two persons and the cooling remains of a deserted meal. One of these persons is the old lord, tall, erect, square-shouldered, white-haired, stern-browed, a man who shows character in every feature, attitude, and movement, and carries his seventy years as easily as most men carry fifty. The other person is his only son and heir, a dreamy-eyed young fellow, who looks about twenty-six but is nearer thirty. Candor, kindliness, honesty, sincerity, simplicity, modesty – it is easy to see that these are cardinal traits of his character; and so when you have clothed him in the formidable components of his name, you somehow seem to be contemplating a lamb in armor: his name and style being the Honourable Kirkcudbright Llanover Marjoribanks Sellers Viscount Berkeley, of Cholmondeley Castle, Warwickshire. (Pronounced K’koobry Thlanover Marshbanks Sellers Vycount Barkly, of Chumly Castle, Warrikshr.) He is standing by a great window, in an attitude suggestive of respectful attention to what his father is saying and equally respectful dissent from the positions and arguments offered. The father walks the floor as he talks, and his talk shows that his temper is away up toward summer heat.

“Soft-spirited as you are, Berkeley, I am quite aware that when you have once made up your mind to do a thing which your ideas of honor and justice require you to do, argument and reason are (for the time being) wasted upon you – yes, and ridicule; persuasion, supplication, and command as well. To my mind—”

“Father, if you will look at it without prejudice, without passion, you must concede that I am not doing a rash thing, a thoughtless, wilful thing, with nothing substantial behind it to justify it. I did not create the American claimant to the earldom of Rossmore; I did not hunt for him, did not find him, did not obtrude him upon your notice. He found himself, he injected himself into our lives—”

“And has made mine a purgatory for ten years with his tiresome letters, his wordy reasonings, his acres of tedious evidence—”

“Which you would never read, would never consent to read. Yet in common fairness he was entitled to a hearing. That hearing would either prove he was the rightful earl – in which case our course would be plain – or it would prove that he wasn’t – in which case our course would be equally plain. I have read his evidences, my lord. I have conned them well, studied them patiently and thoroughly. The chain seems to be complete, no important link wanting. I believe he is the rightful earl.”

“And I a usurper – a nameless pauper, a tramp! Consider what you are saying, sir.”

“Father, if he is the rightful earl, would you, could you – that fact being established – consent to keep his titles and his properties from him a day, an hour, a minute?”

“You are talking nonsense – nonsense – lurid idiotcy! Now, listen to me. I will make a confession – if you wish to call it by that name. I did not read those evidences because I had no occasion to – I was made familiar with them in the time of this claimant’s father and of my own father forty years ago. This fellow’s predecessors have kept mine more or less familiar with them for close upon a hundred and fifty years. The truth is, the rightful heir did go to America, with the Fairfax heir or about the same time – but disappeared – somewhere in the wilds of Virginia, got married, and began to breed savages for the Claimant market; wrote no letters home; was supposed to be dead; his younger brother softly took possession; presently the American did die, and straightway his eldest product put in his claim – by letter – letter still in existence – and died before the uncle in possession found time – or maybe inclination – to answer. The infant son of that eldest product grew up – long interval, you see – and he took to writing letters and furnishing evidences. Well, successor after successor has done the same, down to the present idiot. It was a succession of paupers; not one of them was ever able to pay his passage to England or institute suit. The Fairfaxes kept their lordship alive, and so they have never lost it to this day, although they live in Maryland; their friend lost his by his own neglect. You perceive now, that the facts in this case bring us to precisely this result: morally the American tramp is rightful earl of Rossmore; legally he has no more right than his dog. There now – are you satisfied?”