Page:In defense of Harriet Shelley, and other essays.djvu/159

 MENTAL TELEGRAPHY AGAIN

&quot;You won t remember me, Mr. Clemens, but I remember you very well. I was a cadet at West Point when you and Rev. Joseph H. Twichell came there some years ago and talked to us on a Hun dredth Night. I am a lieutenant in the regular army now, and my name is H. I am in Europe, all alone, for a modest little tour; my regiment is in Arizona.&quot;

We became friendly and sociable, and in the course of the talk he told me of an adventure which had befallen him about to this effect:

&quot;I was at Bellagio, stopping at the big hotel there, and ten days ago I lost my letter of credit. I did not know what in the world to do. I was a stranger; I knew no one in Europe; I hadn t a penny in my pocket; I couldn t even send a telegram to London to get my lost letter replaced; my hotel bill was a week old, and the presentation of it imminent so imminent that it could happen at any moment now. I was so frightened that my wits seemed to leave me. I tramped and tramped, back and forth, like a crazy person. If anybody approached me I hur ried away, for no matter what a person looked like, I took him for the head waiter with the bill.

&quot;I was at last in such a desperate state that I was ready to do any wild thing that promised even the shadow of help, and so this is the insane thing that I did. I saw a family lunching at a small table on the veranda, and recognized their national ity Americans father, mother, and several young daughters young, tastefully dressed, and pretty the rule with our people. I went straight there in

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