be the priests—­and the few scarlet ones would be the cardinals who might have assembled for some royal martyrdom.  There was a bright May sunlight over it all, one of those still, cool brightnesses which served to heighten the weird effect.  I am sure that others felt it besides myself, for everybody seemed wordless and awed, even at times when there was no occasion for silence.  There was something of another age about the whole setting, to say the least.

We left the place in a motor-car, a crowd of boys following after.  As Clemens got in they gathered around the car and gave the college yell, ending with “Twain!  Twain!  Twain!” and added three cheers for Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn, and Pudd’nhead Wilson.  They called for a speech, but he only said a few words in apology for not granting their request.  He made a speech to them that night at the Waldorf—­where he proposed for the City College a chair of citizenship, an idea which met with hearty applause.

In the same address he referred to the “God Trust” motto on the coins, and spoke approvingly of the President’s order for its removal.

We do not trust in God, in the important matters of life, and not even a minister of the Gospel will take any coin for a cent more than its accepted value because of that motto.  If cholera should ever reach these shores we should probably pray to be delivered from the plague, but we would put our main trust in the Board of Health.

Next morning, commenting on the report of this speech, he said: 

“If only the reporters would not try to improve on what I say.  They seem to miss the fact that the very art of saying a thing effectively is in its delicacy, and as they can’t reproduce the manner and intonation in type they make it emphatic and clumsy in trying to convey it to the reader.”

I pleaded that the reporters were often young men, eager, and unmellowed in their sense of literary art.

“Yes,” he agreed, “they are so afraid their readers won’t see my good points that they set up red flags to mark them and beat a gong.  They mean well, but I wish they wouldn’t do it.”

He referred to the portion of his speech concerning the motto on the coins.  He had freely expressed similar sentiments on other public occasions, and he had received a letter criticizing him for saying that we do not really trust in God in any financial matter.

“I wanted to answer it,” he said; “but I destroyed it.  It didn’t seem worth noticing.”

I asked how the motto had originated.

“About 1853 some idiot in Congress wanted to announce to the world that this was a religious nation, and proposed putting it there, and no other Congressman had courage enough to oppose it, of course.  It took courage in those days to do a thing like that; but I think the same thing would happen to-day.”

“Still the country has become broader.  It took a brave man before the Civil War to confess he had read the ’Age of Reason’.”