Roughing It by Mark Twain (large screen ebook reader .txt) 📕

The omnibus stopped, and a young lady got in. Col. Jack stared a moment, then nudged Col. Jim with his elbow:

“Don’t say a word,” he whispered. “Let her ride, if she wants to. Gracious, there’s room enough.”

The young lady got out her porte-monnaie, and handed her fare to Col. Jack.

“What’s this for?” said he.

“Give it to the driver, please.”

“Take back your money, madam. We can’t allow it. You’re welcome to ride here as long as you please, but this shebang’s chartered, and we can’t let you pay a cent.”

The girl shrunk into a corner, bewildered. An old lady with a basket climbed in, and proffered her fare.

“Excuse me,” said Col. Jack. “You’re perfectly welcome here, madam, but we can’t allow you to pay. Set right down there, mum, and don’t you be the least uneasy. Make yourself just as free as if you was in your own turn-out.”

Within two minutes, three gentlemen, two fat women, and a couple of children, entered.

“Come right along, friends,” said Col. Jack; “don’t mind us. This is a free blow-out.” Then he whispered to Col. Jim, “New York ain’t no sociable place, I don’t reckon⁠—it ain’t no name for it!”

He resisted every effort to pass fares to the driver, and made everybody cordially welcome. The situation dawned on the people, and they pocketed their money, and delivered themselves up to covert enjoyment of the episode. Half a dozen more passengers entered.

“Oh, there’s plenty of room,” said Col. Jack. “Walk right in, and make yourselves at home. A blow-out ain’t worth anything as a blow-out, unless a body has company.” Then in a whisper to Col. Jim: “But ain’t these New Yorkers friendly? And ain’t they cool about it, too? Icebergs ain’t anywhere. I reckon they’d tackle a hearse, if it was going their way.”

More passengers got in; more yet, and still more. Both seats were filled, and a file of men were standing up, holding on to the cleats overhead. Parties with baskets and bundles were climbing up on the roof. Half-suppressed laughter rippled up from all sides.

“Well, for clean, cool, out-and-out cheek, if this don’t bang anything that ever I saw, I’m an Injun!” whispered Col. Jack.

A Chinaman crowded his way in.

“I weaken!” said Col. Jack. “Hold on, driver! Keep your seats, ladies, and gents. Just make yourselves free⁠—everything’s paid for. Driver, rustle these folks around as long as they’re a mind to go⁠—friends of ours, you know. Take them everywheres⁠—and if you want more money, come to the St. Nicholas, and we’ll make it all right. Pleasant journey to you, ladies and gents⁠—go it just as long as you please⁠—it shan’t cost you a cent!”

The two comrades got out, and Col. Jack said:

“Jimmy, it’s the sociablest place I ever saw. The Chinaman waltzed in as comfortable as anybody. If we’d staid awhile, I reckon we’d had some niggers. B’ George, we’ll have to barricade our doors to-night, or some of these ducks will be trying to sleep with us.”

Somebody has said that in order to know a community, one must observe the style of its funerals and know what manner of men they bury with most ceremony. I cannot say which class we buried with most éclat in our “flush times,” the distinguished public benefactor or the distinguished rough⁠—possibly the two chief grades or grand divisions of society honored their illustrious dead about equally; and hence, no doubt the philosopher I have quoted from would have needed to see two representative funerals in Virginia before forming his estimate of the people.

There was a grand time over Buck Fanshaw when he died. He was a representative citizen. He had “killed his man”⁠—not in his own quarrel, it is true, but in defence of a stranger unfairly beset by numbers. He had kept a sumptuous saloon. He had been the proprietor of a dashing helpmeet whom he could have discarded without the formality of a divorce. He had held a high position in the fire department and been a very Warwick in politics. When he died there was great lamentation throughout the town, but especially in the vast bottom-stratum of society.

On the inquest it was shown that Buck Fanshaw, in the delirium of a wasting typhoid fever, had taken arsenic, shot himself through the body, cut his throat, and jumped out of a four-story window and broken his neck⁠—and after due deliberation, the jury, sad and tearful, but with intelligence unblinded by its sorrow, brought in a verdict of death “by the visitation of God.” What could the world do without juries?

Prodigious preparations were made for the funeral. All the vehicles in town were hired, all the saloons put in mourning, all the municipal and fire-company flags hung at half-mast, and all the firemen ordered to muster in uniform and bring their machines duly draped in black. Now⁠—let us remark in parenthesis⁠—as all the peoples of the earth had representative adventurers in the Silverland, and as each adventurer had brought the slang of his nation or his locality with him, the combination made the slang of Nevada the richest and the most infinitely varied and copious that had ever existed anywhere in the world, perhaps, except in the mines of California in the “early days.” Slang was the language of Nevada. It was hard to preach a sermon without it, and be understood. Such phrases as “You bet!” “Oh, no, I reckon not!” “No Irish need apply,” and a hundred others, became so common as to fall from the lips of a speaker unconsciously⁠—and very often when they did not touch the subject under discussion and consequently failed to mean anything.

After Buck Fanshaw’s inquest, a meeting of the short-haired brotherhood was held, for nothing can be done on the Pacific coast without a public meeting and an expression of sentiment. Regretful resolutions were passed and various committees appointed; among others, a committee of one was deputed to call on the minister, a fragile, gentle, spiritual new