I had got a number of friends of mine, stalwart men, to sprinkle themselves through the audience armed with big clubs.  Every time I said anything they could possibly guess I intended to be funny they were to pound those clubs on the floor.  Then there was a kind lady in a box up there, also a good friend of mine, the wife of the Governor.  She was to watch me intently, and whenever I glanced toward her she was going to deliver a gubernatorial laugh that would lead the whole audience into applause.

At last I began.  I had the manuscript tucked under a United States flag in front of me where I could get at it in case of need.  But I managed to get started without it.  I walked up and down—­I was young in those days and needed the exercise—­and talked and talked.

Right in the middle of the speech I had placed a gem.  I had put in a moving, pathetic part which was to get at the hearts and souls of my hearers.  When I delivered it they did just what I hoped and expected.  They sat silent and awed.  I had touched them.  Then I happened to glance up at the box where the Governor’s wife was—­you know what happened.

Well, after the first agonizing five minutes, my stage-fright left me, never to return.  I know if I was going to be hanged I could get up and make a good showing, and I intend to.  But I shall never forget my feelings before the agony left me, and I got up here to thank you for her for helping my daughter, by your kindness, to live through her first appearance.  And I want to thank you for your appreciation of her singing, which is, by-the-way, hereditary.

MORALS AND MEMORY

Mr. Clemens was the guest of honor at a reception held at Barnard College (Columbia University), March 7, 1906, by the Barnard Union.  One of the young ladies presented Mr. Clemens, and thanked him for his amiability in coming to make them an address.  She closed with the expression of the great joy it gave her fellow-collegians, “because we all love you.”

If any one here loves me, she has my sincere thanks.  Nay, if any one here is so good as to love me—­why, I’ll be a brother to her.  She shall have my sincere, warm, unsullied affection.  When I was coming up in the car with the very kind young lady who was delegated to show me the way, she asked me what I was going to talk about.  And I said I wasn’t sure.  I said I had some illustrations, and I was going to bring them in.  I said I was certain to give those illustrations, but that I hadn’t the faintest notion what they were going to illustrate.

Now, I’ve been thinking it over in this forest glade [indicating the woods of Arcady on the scene setting], and I’ve decided to work them in with something about morals and the caprices of memory.  That seems to me to be a pretty good subject.  You see, everybody has a memory and it’s pretty sure to have caprices.  And, of course, everybody has morals.