A TRAMP ABROAD By Mark Twain

for the water is very clear. The parapets in front of the

hotels were usually fringed with fishers of all ages.

One day I thought I would stop and see a fish caught.

The result brought back to my mind, very forcibly,

a circumstance which I had not thought of before for

twelve years. This one:

THE MAN WHO PUT UP AT GADSBY’S

When my odd friend Riley and I were newspaper correspondents

in Washington, in the winter of ’67, we were coming down

Pennsylvania Avenue one night, near midnight, in a driving

storm of snow, when the flash of a street-lamp fell upon a man

who was eagerly tearing along in the opposite direction.

This is lucky! You are Mr. Riley, ain’t you?”

Riley was the most self-possessed and solemnly deliberate

person in the republic. He stopped, looked his man

over from head to foot, and finally said:

“I am Mr. Riley. Did you happen to be looking for me?”

“That’s just what I was doing,” said the man, joyously,

“and it’s the biggest luck in the world that I’ve found you.

My name is Lykins. I’m one of the teachers of the high

school–San Francisco. As soon as I heard the San Francisco

postmastership was vacant, I made up my mind to get it–and here

I am.”

“Yes,” said Riley, slowly, “as you have remarked …

Mr. Lykins … here you are. And have you got it?”

“Well, not exactly GOT it, but the next thing to it.

I’ve brought a petition, signed by the Superintendent

of Public Instruction, and all the teachers, and by more

than two hundred other people. Now I want you, if you’ll

be so good, to go around with me to the Pacific delegation,

for I want to rush this thing through and get along home.”

“If the matter is so pressing, you will prefer that we

visit the delegation tonight,” said Riley, in a voice

which had nothing mocking in it–to an unaccustomed ear.

“Oh, tonight, by all means! I haven’t got any time to

fool around. I want their promise before I go to bed–

I ain’t the talking kind, I’m the DOING kind!”

“Yes … you’ve come to the right place for that.

When did you arrive?”

“Just an hour ago.”

“When are you intending to leave?”

“For New York tomorrow evening–for San Francisco

next morning.”

“Just so…. What are you going to do tomorrow?”

“DO! Why, I’ve got to go to the President with the petition

and the delegation, and get the appointment, haven’t I?”

“Yes … very true … that is correct. And then what?”

“Executive session of the Senate at 2 P.M.–got to get

the appointment confirmed–I reckon you’ll grant that?”

“Yes … yes,” said Riley, meditatively, “you are

right again. Then you take the train for New York in

the evening, and the steamer for San Francisco next morning?”

“That’s it–that’s the way I map it out!”

Riley considered a while, and then said:

“You couldn’t stay … a day … well, say two

days longer?”

“Bless your soul, no! It’s not my style. I ain’t a man

to go fooling around–I’m a man that DOES things,

I tell you.”

The storm was raging, the thick snow blowing in gusts.

Riley stood silent, apparently deep in a reverie,

during a minute or more, then he looked up and said:

“Have you ever heard about that man who put up at Gadsby’s,

once? … But I see you haven’t.”

He backed Mr. Lykins against an iron fence, buttonholed him,

fastened him with his eye, like the Ancient Mariner,

and proceeded to unfold his narrative as placidly

and peacefully as if we were all stretched comfortably

in a blossomy summer meadow instead of being persecuted

by a wintry midnight tempest:

“I will tell you about that man. It was in Jackson’s time.

Gadsby’s was the principal hotel, then. Well, this man

arrived from Tennessee about nine o’clock, one morning,

with a black coachman and a splendid four-horse carriage and

an elegant dog, which he was evidently fond of and proud of;

he drove up before Gadsby’s, and the clerk and the landlord

and everybody rushed out to take charge of him, but he said,