It may be well enough to explain.  The man of the 13th January is Adam; the crime of that date was the eating of the apple; the sorrowful spectacle of the 30th November was the expulsion from Eden; the grisly deed of the 16th June was the murder of Abel; the act of the 3d September was the beginning of the journey to the land of Nod; the 12th day of October, the last mountaintops disappeared under the flood.  When you go to church in France, you want to take your almanac with you—­annotated.

STATISTICS

          Extractfrom “The history of the savage club”

During that period of gloom when domestic bereavement had forced Mr. Clemens and his dear ones to secure the privacy they craved until their wounds should heal, his address was known to only a very few of his closest friends.  One old friend in New York, after vain efforts to get his address, wrote him a letter addressed as follows

                    Marktwain,
                         God Knows Where,
                                   Try London.

The letter found him, and Mr. Clemens replied to the letter expressing himself surprised and complimented that the person who was credited with knowing his whereabouts should take so much interest in him, adding:  “Had the letter been addressed to the care of the ‘other party,’ I would naturally have expected to receive it without delay.”

          His correspondent tried again, and addressed the second letter: 

                    Marktwain,
                         The Devil Knows Where,
                              Try London.

          This found him also no less promptly.

On June 9, 1899, he consented to visit the Savage Club, London, on condition that there was to be no publicity and no speech was to be expected from him.  The toastmaster, in proposing the health of their guest, said that as a Scotchman, and therefore as a born expert, he thought Mark Twain had little or no claim to the title of humorist.  Mr. Clemens had tried to be funny but had failed, and his true role in life was statistics; that he was a master of statistics, and loved them for their own sake, and it would be the easiest task he ever undertook if he would try to count all the real jokes he had ever made.  While the toastmaster was speaking, the members saw Mr. Clemens’s eyes begin to sparkle and his cheeks to flush.  He jumped up, and made a characteristic speech.

Perhaps I am not a humorist, but I am a first-class fool—­a simpleton; for up to this moment I have believed Chairman MacAlister to be a decent person whom I could allow to mix up with my friends and relatives.  The exhibition he has just made of himself reveals him to be a scoundrel and a knave of the deepest dye.  I have been cruelly deceived, and it serves me right for trusting a Scotchman.  Yes, I do understand figures, and I can count.  I have counted the words in MacAlister’s drivel (I certainly cannot call it a speech), and there were exactly three thousand four hundred and thirty-nine.  I also carefully counted the lies—­there were exactly three thousand four hundred and thirty-nine.  Therefore, I leave MacAlister to his fate.