Mark Twain Speaking

33. Stanley Club

122 MARK TWAIN SPEAKING· 33 · From thefirst ofMarch 1879 to early July the Clemensfamily was in France, which was not one of Mark Twain's favorite spots. He did not admire the French character, and ofFrench society he clung to the stereotyped view that it was grossly immoral sexually. Dismal spring weather in Paris, damp and raw, did not improve his outlook. Besides, there seems to have been no lively round of social events, which he found stimulating. We do not hear ofsoirees or small gatherings at which he met eminent Frenchmen. When he assumed thefamiliar role of dinner speaker, as for the Stanley Club, it was apparently for an English-speaking audience. Dinner Speech Stanley Club, Paris, ca. April 1879 Mr. Ryan said to mejust now that I'd got to make a speech. I said to Mr. Ryan, "The news came too late to save Roger McPherson." It is sad to know that some things always come too late, and when I look around upon this brilliant assembly I feel disappointed to think what a nice speech I might have made, what fine topics I might have found in Paris to speak about among these historic monuments, the architecture of Paris, the towers of Notre Dame, the caves, and other ancient things. Then I might have said something about the objects of which Paris folks are fond-literature, art, medicine, and adultery. But the news came too late to save Roger McPherson! Perhaps you are not as well acquainted with McPherson as I am? Well, I'll explain who McPherson was. When we sailed from New York there came on board a man all haggard-a mere skeleton. He wasn't much of a man, he wasn't, and on the voyage we often heard him say to himself, "The news came too late to save Roger McPherson." I got interested, and I wanted to know about the man, so I asked him who was McPherson, and he said, "I'm McPherson; but the news came too late to save Roger McPherson." "How too late?" I asked. "About three weeks too late," he replied: "I'll tell you how it happened: A friend of mine died, and they told me MARK TWAIN SPEAKING 123 I must take his body on the cars to his parents in Illinois. I said I'd do it, and they gave me a card with the address, and told me to go down to the depot and put it on a box I'd find there, have the box put on the baggage car, and go right along with it to Illinois. I found the box all right, and nailed the card on it, and put it on the cars; then I went in the depot and got a sand\vich. I was walking around, eating my sandwich, and I passed by the baggage room, and there was my box, with a young man walking around, looking at it, and he had a card in his hand. I felt like going up to that young man, and saying, 'Stranger, that's my corpse.' But I didn't. I walked on, ate my sandwich, and when I looked in again the young man was gone; but there was that card nailed right on that box. I went and looked on that card. It was directed to Colonel Jenkins, Cleveland, Ohio. So I looked in the car, and there was my box all right. "Just before the train started, a man came into the baggage car and laid a lot of limburger cheese down on my box; he didn't know what was in my box, you know, and I didn't know what was in his paper, but I found out later. It was an awful cold night, and after we started, the baggage master came in. He was a nice fellow, Johnson was, and he said, 'A man would freeze to death, out there; I'll make it all right.' "So he shut all the doors and all the windows, built a roaring coal fire in the stove; then he took turns fixing the car and poking the fire, till I began to smell something and feel uncomfortable, so I moved as far away from my corpse as I could, and Johnson says to me, 'A friend of yours? Did he die lately? This year, I mean.' Says I, 'I'll fix it;' so I opened a window, and we took turns breathing...