Page:Abroad with Mark Twain and Eugene Field.djvu/145

 rest of their lives. Indeed, most of the Labby-created nobles by and by gained popular recognition as the real thing—baronets and baronesses. On Labby 's part it was all fun—burlesque pure and simple. Himself a noble by birth, he thought the nobility a stupid and useless institution these days, and if the prime minister—a commoner—could make dukes and princes, why could not he, Labby, at least make Sirs and Ladies? But of course when the government got wise to it, Labby got the sack. Just the same, he's the smartest Englishman I've met. By Jingo, I would like to hear his last words on this planet of ours even as I would like to have heard Heine's grand: 'Never mind my sins, God will forgive them. Forgiving is his business.'"

Of the pair of geniuses, Mark died first (April 21, 1910), and both left characteristic utterances. Mark said to his physician:

"Good-by. If we meet"

Labouchere, shortly before his end, had been lectured by a sister or brother on the godless life he had led and had been assured that, if God didn't take pity on him, he would certainly go to a hot place. An hour or so after listening to these comforting remarks, Labouchere had what Twain called on another occasion a "fair wind for Paradise," i.e., he was dying and knew it. Now 141