Never did Mark Twain deliver a more perfect address than he gave that night.  He began with the beginning, the meagerness of that little hamlet that had seen his birth, and sketched it all so quaintly and delightfully that his hearers laughed and shouted, though there was tenderness under it, and often the tears were just beneath the surface.  He told of his habits of life, how he had reached seventy by following a plan of living that would probably kill anybody else; how, in fact, he believed he had no valuable habits at all.  Then, at last, came that unforgetable close: 

   “Threescore years and ten!

“It is the scriptural statute of limitations.  After that you owe no active duties; for you the strenuous life is over.  You are a time- expired man, to use Kipling’s military phrase:  you have served your term, well or less well, and you are mustered out.  You are become an honorary member of the republic, you are emancipated, compulsions are not for you, nor any bugle-call but “lights out.”  You pay the time-worn duty bills if you choose, or decline, if you prefer—­and without prejudice—­for they are not legally collectable.

“The previous-engagement plea, which in forty years has cost you so many twinges, you can lay aside forever; on this side of the grave you will never need it again.  If you shrink at thought of night, and winter, and the late homecomings from the banquet and the lights and laughter, through the deserted streets—­a desolation which would not remind you now, as for a generation it did, that your friends are sleeping and you must creep in a-tiptoe and not disturb them, but would only remind you that you need not tiptoe, you can never disturb them more—­if you shrink at the thought of these things you need only reply, ’Your invitation honors me and pleases me because you still keep me in your remembrance, but I am seventy; seventy, and would nestle in the chimney-corner, and smoke my pipe, and read my book, and take my rest, wishing you well in all affection, and that when you, in your turn, shall arrive at Pier 70 you may step aboard your waiting ship with a reconciled spirit, and lay your course toward the sinking sun with a contented heart.’”

The tears that had been lying in wait were no longer kept back.  If there were any present who did not let them flow without shame, who did not shout their applause from throats choked with sobs, they failed to mention the fact later.

Many of his old friends, one after another, rose to tell their love for him—­Cable, Carnegie, Gilder, and the rest.  Mr. Rogers did not speak, nor the Reverend Twichell, but they sat at his special table.  Aldrich could not be there, but wrote a letter.  A group of English authors, including Alfred Austin, Barrie, Chesterton, Dobson, Doyle, Hardy, Kipling, Lang, and others, joined in a cable.  Helen Keller wrote: 

   “And you are seventy years old?  Or is the report exaggerated, like
   that of your death?  I remember, when I saw you last, at the house
   of dear Mr. Hutton, in Princeton, you said: