Part 7

But it was far from the facts, very far. Nothing could be farther. In truth, these people made as much of a to do over a mere friendly call as anybody else would over a conflagration. There were special railway trains for the occasion; there was a general muster of princes and dukes to go along, each one occupying room 40; there were regiments of cavalry to clear the way; railway stations were turned into flower gardens, sheltered with flags and all manner of gaudy splendor; there were multitudes of people to look on over the heads of interminable ranks of policemen standing shoulder to shoulder and facing front; there was braying of music and booming of cannon. All that fuss, in sober truth, over a mere off-hand friendly call. Imagine what it would have been if he had brought another shirt and was going to stay a month.

AT THE GUILDHALL

Truly, I am like to suffocate with astonishment at the things that are going on around me here. It is all odd, it is all queer enough, I can tell you; but last night’s work transcends anything I ever heard of in the way of--well, how shall I express it? how can I word it? I find it awkward to get at it. But to say it in a word--and it is a true one, too, as hundreds and hundreds of people will testify--last night the Corporation of the City of London, with a simplicity and ignorance which almost rise to sublimity, actually gave a ball to a Shah who does not dance. If I would allow myself to laugh at a cruel mistake, this would start me. It is the oddest thing that has happened since I have had charge of the Shah. There is some excuse for it in the fact that the Aldermen of London are simply great and opulent merchants, and cannot be expected to know much about the ways of high life--but then they could have asked some of us who have been with the Shah.

The ball was a marvel in its way. The historical Guildhall was a scene of great magnificence. There was a high dais at one end, on which were three state chairs under a sumptuous canopy; upon the middle one sat the Shah, who was almost a Chicago conflagration of precious stones and gold bullion lace. Among other gems upon his breast were a number of emeralds of marvelous size, and from a loop hung an historical diamond of great size and wonderful beauty. On the right of the Shah sat the Princess of Wales, and on his left the wife of the Crown Prince of Russia. Grouped about the three stood a full jury of minor princes, princesses, and ambassadors hailing from many countries.

THE TWO CORRALS

The immense hall was divided in the middle by a red rope. The Shah’s division was sacred to blue blood, and there was breathing room there; but the other corral was but a crush of struggling and perspiring humanity. The place was brilliant with gas and was a rare spectacle in the matter of splendid costumes and rich coloring. The lofty stained-glass windows, pictured with celebrated episodes in the history of the ancient city, were lighted from the outside, and one may imagine the beauty of the effect. The great giants, Gog and Magog (whose origin and history, curiously enough, are unknown even to tradition), looked down from the lofty gallery, but made no observation. Down the long sides of the hall, with but brief spaces between, were imposing groups of marble statuary; and, contrasted with the masses of life and color about them, they made a picturesque effect. The groups were statues (in various attitudes) of the Duke of Wellington. I do not say this knowingly, but only supposingly; but I never have seen a statue in England yet that represented anybody but the Duke of Wellington, and, as for the streets and terraces and courts and squares that are named after him or after selections from his 797 titles, they are simply beyond the grasp of arithmetic. This reminds me that, having named everything after Wellington that there was left to name in England (even down to Wellington boots), our British brothers, still unsatisfied, still oppressed with adulation, blandly crossed over and named our Californian big trees Wellington, and put it in Latin at that. They did that, calmly ignoring the fact that we, the discoverers and owners of the trees, had long ago named them after a larger man. However, if the ghost of Wellington enjoys such a proceeding, possibly the ghost of Washington will not greatly trouble itself about the matter. But what really disturbs me is that, while Wellington is justly still in the fashion here, Washington is fading out of the fashion with us. It is not a good sign. The idols we have raised in his stead are not to our honor.

Some little dancing was done in the sacred corral in front of the Shah by grandees belonging mainly to “grace-of-God” families, but he himself never agitated a foot. The several thousand commoner people on the other side of the rope could not dance any more than sardines in a box. Chances to view the Guildhall spectacle were so hungered for that people offered £5 for the privilege of standing three minutes in the musicians’ gallery and were refused. I cannot convey to you an idea of the inordinate desire which prevails here to see the Shah better than by remarking that speculators who held four-seat opera boxes at Covent Garden Theater to-night were able to get $250 for them. Had all the seats been sold at auction the opera this evening would have produced not less than one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars in gold! I am below the figures rather than above them. The greatest house (for money) that America ever saw was gathered together upon the occasion of Jenny Lind’s first concert at Castle Garden. The seats were sold at auction and produced something over twenty thousand dollars.

I am by no means trying to describe the Guildhall affair of last night. Such a crush of titled swells; such a bewildering array of jeweled uniforms and brilliant feminine costumes; such solemn and awful reception ceremonies in the library; such grim and stately imposing addresses and Persian replies; such imposing processional pageantry later on; such depressing dancing before the apathetic Shah; such ornate tables and imperial good cheer at the banquet--it makes a body tired to merely think of trying to put all that on paper. Perhaps you, sir, will be good enough to imagine it, and thus save one who respects you and honors you five columns of solid writing.

THE LUNATIC ASYLUM IS BLESSED WITH A GLIMPSE

As regards the momentous occasion of the opera, this evening, I found myself in a grievous predicament, for a republican. The tickets were all sold long ago, so I must either go as a member of the royal family or not at all. After a good deal of reflection it seemed best not to mix up with that class lest a political significance might be put upon it. But a queer arrangement had been devised whereby I might have a glimpse of the show, and I took advantage of that. There is an immense barn-like glass house attached to the rear of the theater, and that was fitted up with seats, carpets, mirrors, gas, columns, flowers, garlands, and a meager row of shrubs strung down the sides on brackets--to create an imposing forest effect, I suppose. The place would seat ten or twelve hundred people. All but a hundred paid a dollar and a quarter a seat--for what? To look at the Shah three quarters of a minute, while he walked through to enter the theater. The remaining hundred paid $11 a seat for the same privilege, with the added luxury of rushing on the stage and glancing at the opera audience for one single minute afterward, while the chorus sung “God Save the Queen!” We are all gone mad, I do believe. Eleven hundred five-shilling lunatics and a hundred two-guinea maniacs. The _Herald_ purchased a ticket and created me one of the latter, along with two or three more of the staff.

Our cab was about No. 17,342 in the string that worked its slow way through London and past the theater. The Shah was not to come till nine o’clock, and yet we had to be at the theater by half past six, or we would not get into the glass house at all, they said. We were there on time, and seated in a small gallery which overlooked a very brilliantly dressed throng of people. Every seat was occupied. We sat there two hours and a half gazing and melting. The wide, red-carpeted central aisle below offered good display ground for officials in fine uniforms, and they made good use of it.

ROYALTY ARRIVES

By and by a band in showy uniform came in and stood opposite the entrance. At the end of a tedious interval of waiting trumpets sounded outside, there was some shouting, the band played half of “God Save the Queen,” and then the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and a dozen gorgeous Persian officials entered. After a little the young Prince Arthur came, in a blue uniform, with a whole broadside of gold and silver medals on his breast--for good behavior, punctuality, accurate spelling, penmanship, etc., I suppose, but I could not see the inscriptions. The band gave him some bars of “God Save the Queen,” too, while he stood under us talking, with altogether unroyal animation, with the Persians--the crowd of people staring hungrily at him the while--country cousins, maybe, who will go home and say, “I was as close to him as I am to that chair this minute.”

Then came the Duke of Teck and the Princess Mary, and the band God-Save-the-Queen’d them also. Now came the Prince of Wales and the Russian Tsarina--the royal anthem again, with an extra blast at the end of it. After them came a young, handsome, mighty giant, in showy uniform, his breast covered with glittering orders, and a general’s chapeau, with a flowing white plume, in his hand--the heir to all the throne of all the Russias. The band greeted him with the Russian national anthem, and played it clear through. And they did right; for perhaps it is not risking too much to say that this is the only national air in existence that is really worthy of a great nation.

And at last came the long-expected millennium himself, His Imperial Majesty the Shah, with the charming Princess of Wales on his arm. He had all his jewels on, and his diamond shaving brush in his hat front. He shone like a window with the westering sun on it.

WHAT THE ASYLUM SAW

The small space below us was full now--it could accommodate no more royalty. The august procession filed down the aisle in double rank, the Shah and the Princess of Wales in the lead, and cheers broke forth and a waving of handkerchiefs as the Princess passed--all said this demonstration was meant for her. As the procession disappeared through the farther door, the hundred eleven-dollar maniacs rushed through a small aperture, then through an anteroom, and gathered in a flock on the stage, the chorus striking up “God Save the Queen” at the same moment.

We stood in a mighty bandbox, or a Roman coliseum, with a sea of faces stretching far away over the ground floor, and above them rose five curving tiers of gaudy humanity, the dizzy upper tier in the far distance rising sharply up against the roof, like a flower garden trying to hold an earthquake down and not succeeding. It was a magnificent spectacle, and what with the roaring of the chorus, the waving of handkerchiefs, the cheering of the people, the blazing gas, and the awful splendor of the long file of royalty, standing breast to breast in the royal box, it was wonderfully exhilarating, not to say exciting.

The chorus sang only three-quarters of a minute--one stanza--and down came the huge curtain and shut out the fairyland. And then all those eleven-dollar people hunted their way out again.

A NATION DEMENTED

We are certainly gone mad. We scarcely look at the young colossus who is to reign over 70,000,000 of people and the mightiest empire in extent which exists to-day. We have no eyes but for this splendid barbarian, who is lord over a few deserts and a modest ten million of ragamuffins--a man who has never done anything to win our gratitude or excite our admiration, except that he managed to starve a million of his subjects to death in twelve months. If he had starved the rest I suppose we would set up a monument to him now.

The London theaters are almost absolutely empty these nights. Nobody goes, hardly. The managers are being ruined. The streets for miles are crammed with people waiting whole long hours for a chance glimpse of the Shah. I never saw any man “draw” like this one.

Is there any truth in the report that your bureaus are trying to get the Shah to go over there and lecture? He could get $100,000 a night here and choose his own subject.

I know a showman who has got a pill that belonged to him, and which for some reason he did not take. That showman will not take any money for that pill. He is going to travel with it. And let me tell you he will get more engagements than he can fill in a year.

IV MARK TWAIN HOOKS THE PERSIAN OUT OF THE ENGLISH CHANNEL

LONDON, _June 26, 1873_.

I suppose I am the only member of the Shah’s family who is not wholly broken down and worn out; and, to tell the truth, there is not much of me left. If you have ever been limited to four days in Paris or Rome or Jerusalem and been “rushed” by a guide you can form a vague, far-away sort of conception of what the Shah and the rest of us have endured during these late momentous days. If this goes on we may as well get ready for the imperial inquest.

When I was called at five o’clock the other morning to go to Portsmouth, and remembered that the Shah’s incessant movements had left me only three hours’ sleep that night, nothing but a sense of duty drove me forth. A cab could not be found, nor a carriage in all London. I lost an hour and a half waiting and trying, then started on foot and lost my way; consequently I missed one train by a good while, another one by three minutes, and then had more than half an hour to spare before another would go. Most people had had a similar experience, and there was comfort in that. We started at last, and were more than three hours going seventy-two miles. We stopped at no stations, hardly, but we halted every fifteen minutes out in the woods and fields for no purpose that we could discover. Never was such an opportunity to look at scenery. There were five strangers in our car, or carriage, as the English call it, and by degrees their English reserve thawed out and they passed around their sherry and sandwiches and grew sociable.

One of them had met the Russian General of Police in St. Petersburg, and found him a queer old simple-hearted soldier, proud of his past and devoted to his master, the present Tsar, and to the memory of his predecessor, Nicholas. The English gentleman gave an instance of the old man’s simplicity which one would not expect in a chief of police. The general had been visiting London and been greatly impressed by two things there--the admirable police discipline and the museum. It transpired that the museum he referred to was not that mighty collection of marvels known to all the world as the British Museum, but Mme. Toussaud’s Waxworks Show; and in this waxwork show he had seen a figure of the Emperor Nicholas. And did it please him? Yes, as to the likeness; for it was a good likeness and a commanding figure; but--“_Mon Dieu!_ try to fancy it, m’sieu--dressed in the uniform of a simple colonel of infantry!--the great Nicholas of Russia, my august late master, dressed in a colonel’s uniform!”

The old general could not abide that. He went to the proprietor and remonstrated against this wanton indignity. The proprietor was grieved; but it was the only Russian uniform he could get, and----

“Say no more!” said the general. “May I get you one?”

The proprietor would be most happy. The general lost not a moment; he wrote at once to the Emperor Alexander, describing with anguish the degradation which the late great Nicholas was suffering day by day through his infamously clothed waxen representative, and imploring His Majesty to send suitable raiment for the imperial dummy, and also a letter to authenticate the raiment. And out of regard for the old servant and respect for his outraged feelings the Emperor of all the Russias descended from his Alpine altitude to send to the Toussaud waxwork the general’s uniform worn last by his father, and to write with his own hand an authenticating letter to go with it. So the simple-hearted police chief was happy once more, and never once thought of charging the “museum” $10,000 for these valuable additions to the show, which he might easily have done, and collected the money, too. How like our own chiefs of police this good old soul is!

Another of these English gentlemen told an anecdote, which, he said, was old, but which I had not heard before. He said that one day St. Peter and the devil chanced to be thrown together, and found it pretty dull trying to pass the time. Finally they got to throwing dice for a lawyer. The devil threw sixes. Then St. Peter threw sixes. The devil threw sixes again. St. Peter threw sixes again. The devil threw sixes once more. Then St. Peter threw sevens, and the devil said, “Oh, come now, Your Honor, cheat fair. None of your playing miracles here!” I thought there was a nice bit of humor in that suggestion to “cheat fair.”

A SMALL PRIVATE NAUTICAL RACE

I am getting to Portsmouth about as fast in this letter as I did in that train. The Right Honorable the Mayor of Portsmouth had had a steamer placed at his disposal by the Admiralty, and he had invited the Lord Mayor of London and other guests to go in her. This was the ship I was to sail in, and she was to leave her pier at 9 A.M. sharp. I arrived at that pier at ten minutes to eleven exactly. There was one chance left, however. The ship had stopped for something and was floating at ease about a mile away.

A rusty, decayed, little two-oared skiff, the size of a bathtub, came floating by, with a fisherman and his wife and child in it. I entreated the man to come in and take me to the ship. Presently he consented and started toward me. I stood impatient and all ready to jump the moment he should get within thirty yards of me; he halted at the distance of thirty-five and said it would be a long pull; did I think I could pay him two shillings for it, seeing it was a holiday? All this palaver and I in such a state of mind! I jumped aboard and told him to rush, which he did; at least he threw his whole heart into his little, useless oars, and we moved off at the rate of a mile a week. This was solid misery. When we had gone a hundred and nine feet and were gaining on the tenth a long, trim, graceful man-of-war’s boat came flying by, bound for the flagship. Without expecting even the courtesy of a response, I hailed and asked the coxswain to take me to the mayor’s vessel. He said, “Certainly, sir!--ease her, boys!” I could not have been more astonished at anything in the world. I quickly gave my man his two shillings, and he started to pull me to the boat. Then there was a movement of discontent among the sailors, and they seemed about to move on. I thought--well, you are not such generous fellows, after all, as I took you to be, or so polite, either; but just then the coxswain hailed and said:

“The boys don’t mind the pull, and they’re perfectly willing to take you, but they say they ain’t willing to take the fisherman’s job away from him.”

Now that was genuine manliness and right conduct. I shall always remember that honorable act. I told them the fisherman was already paid, and I was in their boat the next moment. Then ensued the real fun of the day, as far as I was personally concerned. The boys glanced over their shoulders to measure the distance, and then at the order to “Give way!” they bent to it and the boat sped through the water like an arrow. We passed all kinds of craft and steadily shortened the distance that lay between us and the ship. Presently the coxswain said:

“No use! Her wheels have begun to turn over. Lively now, lively!”

Then we flew. We watched the ship’s movement with a sharp interest and calculated our chances.

“Can you steer?” said the coxswain.

“Can a duck swim?” said I.

“Good--we’ll make her yet!”

I took the helm and he the stroke oar, and that one oar did appear to add a deal to that boat’s speed. The ship was turning around to go out to sea, and she did seem to turn unnecessarily fast, too; but just as she was pointed right and both her wheels began to go ahead our boat’s bow touched her companionway and I was aboard. It was a handsome race, and very exciting. If I could have had that dainty boat and those eight white-shirted, blue-trousered sailors for the day I would not have gone in any ship, but would have gone about in vast naval style and experienced the feelings of an admiral.

OLD HISTORICAL MEN-OF-WAR

Our ship sailed out through a narrow way, bordered by piers that swarmed with people, and likewise by prodigious men-of-war of the fashion of a hundred years ago. There were, perhaps, a dozen of the stately veterans, these relics of an historic past; and not looking aged and seedy, either, but as bright and fresh as if they had been launched and painted yesterday. They were the noblest creatures to look upon; hulls of huge proportion and great length; four long tiers of cannon grinning from their tall sides; vast sterns that towered into the air like the gable end of a church; graceful bows and figureheads; masts as trim and lofty as spires--surely no spectacle could be so imposing as a sea fight in the old times, when such beautiful and such lordly ships as these ruled the seas. And how it must have stirred the heart of England when a fleet of them used to come sailing in from victory, with ruined sides and tattered spars and sails, while bells and cannon pealed a welcome!