aurora, her fan from Japan, her diamonds from Brazil, her bracelets from California, her pearls from Ceylon, her cameos from Rome.  She has gems and trinkets from buried Pompeii, and others that graced comely Egyptian forms that have been dust and ashes now for forty centuries.  Her watch is from Geneva, her card case is from China, her hair is from—­from—­I don’t know where her hair is from; I never could find out; that is, her other hair—­her public hair, her Sunday hair; I don’t mean the hair she goes to bed with.

And that reminds me of a trifle.  Any time you want to you can glance around the carpet of a Pullman car, and go and pick up a hair-pin; but not to save your life can you get any woman in that car to acknowledge that hair-pin.  Now, isn’t that strange?  But it’s true.  The woman who has never swerved from cast-iron veracity and fidelity in her whole life will, when confronted with this crucial test, deny her hair-pin.  She will deny that hair-pin before a hundred witnesses.  I have stupidly got into more trouble and more hot water trying to hunt up the owner of a hair-pin in a Pullman than by any other indiscretion of my life.

DRESS REFORM AND COPYRIGHT

          When the present copyright law was under discussion, Mr.
          Clemens appeared before the committee.  He had sent Speaker
          Cannon the following letter: 

“Dear uncle Joseph,—­Please get me the thanks of Congress, not next week but right away.  It is very necessary.  Do accomplish this for your affectionate old friend right away—­by, persuasion if you can, by violence if you must, for it is imperatively necessary that I get on the floor of the House for two or three hours and talk to the members, man by man, in behalf of support; encouragement, and protection of one of the nation’s most valuable assets and industries—­its literature.  I have arguments with me—­also a barrel with liquid in it.

“Give me a chance.  Get me the thanks of Congress.  Don’t wait for others—­there isn’t time; furnish them to me yourself and let Congress ratify later.  I have stayed away and let Congress alone for seventy-one years and am entitled to the thanks.  Congress knows this perfectly well, and I have long felt hurt that this quite proper and earned expression of gratitude has been merely felt by the House and never publicly uttered.

          “Send me an order on the sergeant-at-arms quick.  When shall I
          come? 
                                   “With love and a benediction,
          
                                             “Mark twain.”

          While waiting to appear before the committee, My.  Clemens
          talked to the reporters: 

Why don’t you ask why I am wearing such apparently unseasonable clothes?  I’ll tell you.  I have found that when a man reaches the advanced age of seventy-one years, as I have, the continual sight of dark clothing is likely to have a depressing effect upon him.  Light-colored clothing is more pleasing to the eye and enlivens the spirit.  Now, of course, I cannot compel every one to wear such clothing just for my especial benefit, so I do the next best thing and wear it myself.