Roughing It by Mark Twain

turn and catch Mrs.–‘s intent and waiting eye; my conversation with her

flashed upon me, and in spite of all I could do I smiled. She took it

for the signal, and promptly delivered a mellow laugh that touched off

the whole audience; and the explosion that followed was the triumph of

the evening. I thought that that honest man Sawyer would choke himself;

and as for the bludgeons, they performed like pile-drivers. But my poor

little morsel of pathos was ruined. It was taken in good faith as an

intentional joke, and the prize one of the entertainment, and I wisely

let it go at that.

All the papers were kind in the morning; my appetite returned; I had a

abundance of money. All’s well that ends well.

CHAPTER LXXIX.

I launched out as a lecturer, now, with great boldness. I had the field

all to myself, for public lectures were almost an unknown commodity in

the Pacific market. They are not so rare, now, I suppose. I took an old

personal friend along to play agent for me, and for two or three weeks we

roamed through Nevada and California and had a very cheerful time of it.

Two days before I lectured in Virginia City, two stagecoaches were robbed

within two miles of the town. The daring act was committed just at dawn,

by six masked men, who sprang up alongside the coaches, presented

revolvers at the heads of the drivers and passengers, and commanded a

general dismount. Everybody climbed down, and the robbers took their

watches and every cent they had. Then they took gunpowder and blew up

the express specie boxes and got their contents. The leader of the

robbers was a small, quick-spoken man, and the fame of his vigorous

manner and his intrepidity was in everybody’s mouth when we arrived.

The night after instructing Virginia, I walked over the desolate “divide”

and down to Gold Hill, and lectured there. The lecture done, I stopped

to talk with a friend, and did not start back till eleven. The “divide”

was high, unoccupied ground, between the towns, the scene of twenty

midnight murders and a hundred robberies. As we climbed up and stepped

out on this eminence, the Gold Hill lights dropped out of sight at our

backs, and the night closed down gloomy and dismal. A sharp wind swept

the place, too, and chilled our perspiring bodies through.

“I tell you I don’t like this place at night,” said Mike the agent.

“Well, don’t speak so loud,” I said. “You needn’t remind anybody that we

are here.”

Just then a dim figure approached me from the direction of Virginia–a

man, evidently. He came straight at me, and I stepped aside to let him

pass; he stepped in the way and confronted me again. Then I saw that he

had a mask on and was holding something in my face–I heard a click-click

and recognized a revolver in dim outline. I pushed the barrel aside with

my hand and said:

“Don’t!”

He ejaculated sharply:

“Your watch! Your money!”

I said:

“You can have them with pleasure–but take the pistol away from my face,

please. It makes me shiver.”

“No remarks! Hand out your money!”

“Certainly–I–”

“Put up your hands! Don’t you go for a weapon! Put ’em up! Higher!”

I held them above my head.

A pause. Then:

“Are you going to hand out your money or not?”

I dropped my hands to my pockets and said:

Certainly! I–”

“Put up your hands ! Do you want your head blown off? Higher!”

I put them above my head again.

Another pause.

Are you going to hand out your money or not? Ah-ah–again? Put up your

hands! By George, you want the head shot off you awful bad!”

“Well, friend, I’m trying my best to please you. You tell me to give up

my money, and when I reach for it you tell me to put up my hands. If you

would only–. Oh, now–don’t! All six of you at me! That other man

will get away while.–Now please take some of those revolvers out of my

face–do, if you please! Every time one of them clicks, my liver comes