I am minded to finish with a mild anecdote which carries its moral.  Now, understand that I never pretended to be a crack shot, though I did make fair practice through “the Indian twist,” the sling supporting one’s arm; if I hit the target occasionally, I was satisfied.  But it once happened (at Teignmouth, where I was a casual visitor) that, seeing a squad of volunteers practising at a mark on the beach, I went to look on, and was courteously offered a shot, being not unknown by fame to some of them.  The target was at some 500 yards (say about a third of a mile), so it was not likely I could hit it, with a chance rifle, perhaps carelessly sighted; yet, when I did let fly, to the loud admiration of the others and to my own astonishment (which of course I did not reveal), the marker signalled for a bull’s eye!  Entreated to do it again, this prudent rifleman modestly declined, for he remembered Sam Slick’s lucky shot at the floating bottle; it was manifestly his wisdom not to risk fame won by a fluke.  So the moral is, don’t try to do twice what you’ve done well once.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

AUTOGRAPHS AND ADVERTISEMENTS.

A word or two about autographs, surely a topic suitable to this book:  in fact, I have sometimes preferred to spell it authorgraphs:  most public men are troubled nowadays with this sort of petty homage, and I more than suspect that some collectors make merchandise of them; “my valuable collection” being often the form in which strangers solicit the flattering boon.  Once I had a queer proof as to the money value of my own,—­as thus:  I went quite casually into an auctioneer’s in Piccadilly, to a book-sale; a lot of some half-dozen volumes were just being knocked down for next to nothing (such is our deterioration in these newspaper days) when the wielder of Thor’s fateful hammer, dissatisfied at the price, asked for the lot to look at,—­and coming amongst others to a certain book with handwriting in it, said, “Why, here’s one with Martin Tupper’s autograph,”—­on which a buyer called out, “I’ll give you eighteenpence more for that,”—­suggestive to me of my auction value,—­as I have sometimes said.  If, however, the more than hundreds (thousands) I have been giving for these fifty years, really have so easily gratified friends known or unknown, I am glad to be in that way so much a gainer.  Americans in particular ask frequently, and sometimes with wisely enclosed stamped and addressed envelopes, which is a thing both considerate and praiseworthy; but a very different sort and not easily to be excused are those who send registered albums by post for one’s handwriting, expecting to have them returned similarly at no small cost.  Longfellow told me of this kind of young lady taxation, and mentioned that he once had to pay twelve shillings for a registered return quarto.  I dare say that our popular Laureate has had similar experiences.

The most “wholesale order” for my signature was at New York in 1851, when at a party there my perhaps too exacting hostess put a large pack of plain cards into my hand, posted me at a corner table with pen and ink, and flatteringly requested an autograph for each of her 100 guests! of course, even this was graciously conceded,—­though rather too much of a good thing, I thought.