After
half
a year's
luxurious
vagrancy
in
the
islands, I
took
shipping
in
a
sailing
vessel,
and
regretfully
returned
to
San Francisco—a
voyage
in
every
way
delightful,
but
without
an
incident: unless lying
two
long
weeks
in
a
dead
calm,
eighteen
hundred
miles
from
the
nearest
land,
may
rank
as
an
incident.
Schools
of
whales
grew
so
tame
that
day
after
day
they
played
about
the
ship
among
the
porpoises
and
the
sharks
without
the
least
apparent
fear
of
us,
and
we
pelted
them
with
empty bottles
for
lack
of
better
sport. Twenty-four
hours
afterward
these
bottles
would
be
still
lying
on
the
glassy
water
under
our
noses,
showing
that
the
ship
had
not
moved
out
of
her
place
in
all
that
time.
The
calm
was
absolutely
breathless,
and
the
surface
of
the
sea
absolutely
without
a wrinkle.
For
a
whole
day
and
part
of
a
night
we
lay
so
close
to
another
ship
that
had
drifted
to
our
vicinity,
that
we
carried
on
conversations
with
her
passengers,
introduced
each
other
by
name,
and
became pretty intimately acquainted
with
people
we
had
never
heard
of
before,
and
have
never
heard
of
since.
This
was
the
only
vessel
we
saw
during
the
whole
lonely voyage.
We
had
fifteen
passengers,
and
to
show
how
hard
pressed
they
were
at
last
for
occupation
and
amusement, I
will
mention
that
the
gentlemen gave a
good
part
of
their
time
every
day,
during
the
calm,
to
trying
to
sit
on
an
empty
champagne
bottle (lying
on
its
side),
and
thread a needle
without
touching
their
heels
to
the
deck,
or
falling over;
and
the
ladies sat
in
the
shade
of
the
mainsail,
and
watched
the
enterprise
with
absorbing
interest.
We
were
at
sea
five
Sundays;
and
yet,
but
for
the
almanac,
we
never
would
have
known
but
that
all
the
other
days
were
Sundays
too. I
was
home
again,
in
San Francisco,
without
means
and
without
employment. I tortured my
brain
for
a saving scheme
of
some
kind,
and
at
last
a public lecture
occurred
to
me! I sat
down
and
wrote one,
in
a
fever
of
hopeful anticipation. I
showed
it
to
several
friends,
but
they
all
shook
their
heads.
They
said
nobody
would
come
to
hear
me,
and
I
would
make
a humiliating
failure
of
it.
They
said
that
as
I had
never
spoken
in
public, I
would
break
down
in
the
delivery, anyhow. I
was
disconsolate
now.
But
at
last
an
editor
slapped
me
on
the
back
and
told
me
to
"go ahead."
He
said, "Take
the
largest
house
in
town,
and
charge
a
dollar
a ticket."
The
audacity
of
the
proposition
was
charming;
it
seemed
fraught
with
practical
worldly
wisdom, however.
The
proprietor
of
the
several
theatres
endorsed
the
advice,
and
said I
might
have
his
handsome
new
opera-house
at
half
price—fifty dollars.
In
sheer
desperation
I
took
it—on credit,
for
sufficient
reasons.
In
three
days
I
did
a
hundred
and
fifty
dollars'
worth
of
printing
and
advertising,
and
was
the
most
distressed
and
frightened
creature
on
the
Pacific
coast. I
could
not
sleep—who could,
under
such
circumstances?
For
other
people
there
was
facetiousness
in
the
last
line
of
my posters,
but
to
me
it
was
plaintive
with
a pang
when
I wrote it: "Doors
open
at
7 1/2.
The
trouble
will
begin
at
8."
That
line has
done
good
service
since. Showmen
have
borrowed
it
frequently. I
have
even
seen
it
appended
to
a newspaper
advertisement
reminding
school
pupils
in
vacation
what
time
next
term
would
begin.
As
those
three
days
of
suspense
dragged
by, I
grew
more
and
more
unhappy. I had
sold
two
hundred
tickets
among
my
personal
friends,
but
I
feared
they
might
not
come. My lecture,
which
had
seemed
"humorous"
to
me,
at
first,
grew
steadily
more
and
more
dreary,
till
not
a
vestige
of
fun
seemed
left,
and
I
grieved
that
I
could
not
bring
a
coffin
on
the
stage
and
turn
the
thing
into
a funeral. I
was
so
panic-stricken,
at
last,
that
I went
to
three
old
friends,
giants
in
stature,
cordial
by
nature,
and
stormy-voiced,
and
said: "This
thing
is
going
to
be
a failure;
the
jokes
in
it
are
so
dim
that
nobody
will
ever
see
them; I
would
like
to
have
you
sit
in
the
parquette,
and
help
me
through."
They
said
they
would.
Then
I went
to
the
wife
of
a
popular
citizen,
and
said
that
if
she
was
willing
to
do
me
a
very
great
kindness, I
would
be
glad
if
she
and
her
husband
would
sit
prominently
in
the
left-hand stage- box,
where
the
whole
house
could
see
them. I
explained
that
I
should
need
help,
and
would
turn
toward
her
and
smile,
as
a signal,
when
I had been
delivered
of
an
obscure
joke—"and then," I added, "don't
wait
to
investigate,
but
respond!"
She
promised.
Down
the
street
I met a
man
I
never
had
seen
before.
He
had been drinking,
and
was
beaming
with
smiles
and
good
nature.
He
said: "My name's Sawyer.
You
don't
know
me,
but
that
don't matter. I haven't got a cent,
but
if
you
knew
how
bad
I wanted
to
laugh, you'd
give
me
a ticket. Come, now,
what
do
you
say?" "Is
your
laugh
hung
on
a hair-trigger?—that is,
is
it
critical,
or
can
you
get
it
off
easy?" My
drawling
infirmity
of
speech
so
affected
him
that
he
laughed a
specimen
or
two
that
struck
me
as
being
about
the
article
I wanted,
and
I gave
him
a ticket,
and
appointed
him
to
sit
in
the
second
circle,
in
the
centre,
and
be
responsible
for
that
division
of
the
house. I gave
him
minute
instructions
about
how
to
detect
indistinct
jokes,
and
then
went away,
and
left
him
chuckling
placidly
over
the
novelty
of
the
idea. I ate
nothing
on
the
last
of
the
three
eventful days—I
only
suffered. I had advertised
that
on
this
third
day
the
box-office
would
be
opened
for
the
sale
of
reserved seats. I crept
down
to
the
theater
at
four
in
the
afternoon
to
see
if
any
sales
had been made.
The
ticket seller
was
gone,
the
box-office
was
locked
up. I had
to
swallow
suddenly,
or
my
heart
would
have
got out. "No sales," I said
to
myself; "I
might
have
known it." I
thought
of
suicide, pretended illness, flight. I
thought
of
these
things
in
earnest,
for
I
was
very
miserable
and
scared.
But
of
course
I had
to
drive
them
away,
and
prepare
to
meet my fate. I
could
not
wait
for
half-past seven—I wanted
to
face
the
horror,
and
end
it—the feeling
of
many
a
man
doomed
to
hang,
no
doubt. I went
down
back
streets
at
six
o'clock,
and
entered
the
theatre
by
the
back
door. I stumbled my
way
in
the
dark
among
the
ranks
of
canvas
scenery,
and
stood
on
the
stage.
The
house
was
gloomy
and
silent,
and
its
emptiness depressing. I went
into
the
dark
among
the
scenes
again,
and
for
an
hour
and
a
half
gave
myself
up
to
the
horrors,
wholly
unconscious
of
everything else.
Then
I
heard
a murmur;
it
rose
higher
and
higher,
and
ended
in
a crash,
mingled
with
cheers.
It
made
my
hair
raise,
it
was
so
close
to
me,
and
so
loud.
There
was
a pause,
and
then
another; presently came a third,
and
before
I
well
knew
what
I
was
about, I
was
in
the
middle
of
the
stage, staring
at
a
sea
of
faces, bewildered
by
the
fierce
glare
of
the
lights,
and
quaking
in
every
limb
with
a
terror
that
seemed
like
to
take
my
life
away.
The
house
was
full,
aisles
and
all!
The
tumult
in
my
heart
and
brain
and
legs
continued
a
full
minute
before
I
could
gain
any
command
over
myself.
Then
I
recognized
the
charity
and
the
friendliness
in
the
faces
before
me,
and
little
by
little
my
fright
melted
away,
and
I began
to
talk
Within
three
or
four
minutes
I
was
comfortable,
and
even
content. My
three
chief
allies,
with
three
auxiliaries,
were
on
hand,
in
the
parquette,
all
sitting together,
all
armed
with
bludgeons,
and
all
ready
to
make
an
onslaught
upon
the
feeblest
joke
that
might
show
its
head.
And
whenever a
joke
did
fall,
their
bludgeons came
down
and
their
faces
seemed
to
split
from
ear
to
ear. Sawyer,
whose
hearty countenance
was
seen
looming
redly
in
the
centre
of
the
second
circle,
took
it
up,
and
the
house
was
carried handsomely. Inferior
jokes
never
fared
so
royally before. Presently I
delivered
a
bit
of
serious
matter
with
impressive
unction
(it
was
my pet),
and
the
audience
listened
with
an
absorbed
hush
that
gratified
me
more
than
any
applause;
and
as
I
dropped
the
last
word
of
the
clause, I
happened
to
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.