Chapter XXXI: Marco

by Mark Twain

　　We strolled along in a sufficiently indolent fashionnow, and talked. We must dispose of aboutthe amount of time it ought to take to go to the littlehamlet of Abblasoure and put justice on the track ofthose murderers and get back home again. And meantime I had an auxiliary interest which had never paledyet, never lost its novelty for me since I had been inArthur's kingdom: the behavior -- born of nice andexact subdivisions of caste -- of chance passers-bytoward each other. Toward the shaven monk whotrudged along with his cowl tilted back and the sweatwashing down his fat jowls, the coal-burner was deeplyreverent; to the gentleman he was abject; with thesmall farmer and the free mechanic he was cordial andgossipy; and when a slave passed by with a countenance respectfully lowered, this chap's nose was in theair -- he couldn't even see him. Well, there are timeswhen one would like to hang the whole human raceand finish the farce.Presently we struck an incident. A small mob ofhalf-naked boys and girls came tearing out of thewoods, scared and shrieking. The eldest among themwere not more than twelve or fourteen years old.They implored help, but they were so beside themselves that we couldn't make out what the matter was.However, we plunged into the wood, they skurrying inthe lead, and the trouble was quickly revealed: theyhad hanged a little fellow with a bark rope, and he waskicking and struggling, in the process of choking todeath. We rescued him, and fetched him around. Itwas some more human nature; the admiring little folkimitating their elders; they were playing mob, andhad achieved a success which promised to be a gooddeal more serious than they had bargained for.It was not a dull excursion for me. I managed toput in the time very well. I made various acquaintanceships, and in my quality of stranger was able to ask asmany questions as I wanted to. A thing which naturally interested me, as a statesman, was the matter ofwages. I picked up what I could under that headduring the afternoon. A man who hasn't had muchexperience, and doesn't think, is apt to measure anation's prosperity or lack of prosperity by the meresize of the prevailing wages; if the wages be high, thenation is prosperous; if low, it isn't. Which is anerror. It isn't what sum you get, it's how much youcan buy with it, that's the important thing; and it'sthat that tells whether your wages are high in fact oronly high in name. I could remember how it was inthe time of our great civil war in the nineteenth century. In the North a carpenter got three dollars aday, gold valuation; in the South he got fifty -- payable in Confederate shinplasters worth a dollar abushel. In the North a suit of overalls cost threedollars -- a day's wages; in the South it cost seventyfive -- which was two days' wages. Other things werein proportion. Consequently, wages were twice ashigh in the North as they were in the South, becausethe one wage had that much more purchasing powerthan the other had.Yes, I made various acquaintances in the hamletand a thing that gratified me a good deal was to findour new coins in circulation -- lots of milrays, lots ofmills, lots of cents, a good many nickels, and somesilver; all this among the artisans and commonaltygenerally; yes, and even some gold -- but that was atthe bank, that is to say, the goldsmith's. I droppedin there while Marco, the son of Marco, was hagglingwith a shopkeeper over a quarter of a pound of salt,and asked for change for a twenty-dollar gold piece.They furnished it -- that is, after they had chewed thepiece, and rung it on the counter, and tried acid on it,and asked me where I got it, and who I was, andwhere I was from, and where I was going to, andwhen I expected to get there, and perhaps a couple ofhundred more questions; and when they got aground,I went right on and furnished them a lot of information voluntarily; told them I owned a dog, and hisname was Watch, and my first wife was a Free WillBaptist, and her grandfather was a Prohibitionist, andI used to know a man who had two thumbs on eachhand and a wart on the inside of his upper lip, anddied in the hope of a glorious resurrection, and so on,and so on, and so on, till even that hungry villagequestioner began to look satisfied, and also a shadeput out; but he had to respect a man of my financialstrength, and so he didn't give me any lip, but Inoticed he took it out of his underlings, which was aperfectly natural thing to do. Yes, they changed mytwenty, but I judged it strained the bank a little, whichwas a thing to be expected, for it was the same aswalking into a paltry village store in the nineteenthcentury and requiring the boss of it to change a twothousand-dollar bill for you all of a sudden. He coulddo it, maybe; but at the same time he would wonderhow a small farmer happened to be carrying so muchmoney around in his pocket; which was probably thisgoldsmith's thought, too; for he followed me tothe door and stood there gazing after me with reverentadmiration.Our new money was not only handsomely circulating,but its language was already glibly in use; that is tosay, people had dropped the names of the formermoneys, and spoke of things as being worth so manydollars or cents or mills or milrays now. It was verygratifying. We were progressing, that was sure.I got to know several master mechanics, but aboutthe most interesting fellow among them was the blacksmith, Dowley. He was a live man and a brisk talker,and had two journeymen and three apprentices, and wasdoing a raging business. In fact, he was getting rich,hand over fist, and was vastly respected. Marco wasvery proud of having such a man for a friend. Hehad taken me there ostensibly to let me see the bigestablishment which bought so much of his charcoal,but really to let me see what easy and almost familiarterms he was on with this great man. Dowley and Ifraternized at once; I had had just such picked men,splendid fellows, under me in the Colt Arms Factory.I was bound to see more of him, so I invited him tocome out to Marco's Sunday, and dine with us.Marco was appalled, and held his breath; and whenthe grandee accepted, he was so grateful that he almostforgot to be astonished at the condescension.Marco's joy was exuberant -- but only for a moment; then he grew thoughtful, then sad; and whenhe heard me tell Dowley I should have Dickon, theboss mason, and Smug, the boss wheelwright, outthere, too, the coal-dust on his face turned to chalk,and he lost his grip. But I knew what was the matterwith him; it was the expense. He saw ruin beforehim; he judged that his financial days were numbered.However, on our way to invite the others, I said:"You must allow me to have these friends come;and you must also allow me to pay the costs."His face cleared, and he said with spirit:"But not all of it, not all of it. Ye cannot wellbear a burden like to this alone."I stopped him, and said:"Now let's understand each other on the spot, oldfriend. I am only a farm bailiff, it is true; but I amnot poor, nevertheless. I have been very fortunatethis year -- you would be astonished to know how Ihave thriven. I tell you the honest truth when I sayI could squander away as many as a dozen feasts likethis and never care that for the expense!" and Isnapped my fingers. I could see myself rise a foot ata time in Marco's estimation, and when I fetched outthose last words I was become a very tower for styleand altitude. "So you see, you must let me have myway. You can't contribute a cent to this orgy, that'ssettled.""It's grand and good of you --""No, it isn't. You've opened your house to Jonesand me in the most generous way; Jones was remarking upon it to-day, just before you came back fromthe village; for although he wouldn't be likely to saysuch a thing to you -- because Jones isn't a talker, andis diffident in society -- he has a good heart and agrateful, and knows how to appreciate it when he iswell treated; yes, you and your wife have been veryhospitable toward us --""Ah, brother, 'tis nothing -- such hospitality!""But it is something; the best a man has, freelygiven, is always something, and is as good as a princecan do, and ranks right along beside it -- for even aprince can but do his best. And so we'll shop aroundand get up this layout now, and don't you worry aboutthe expense. I'm one of the worst spendthrifts that everwas born. Why, do you know, sometimes in a singleweek I spend -- but never mind about that -- you'dnever believe it anyway."And so we went gadding along, dropping in hereand there, pricing things, and gossiping with the shopkeepers about the riot, and now and then runningacross pathetic reminders of it, in the persons ofshunned and tearful and houseless remnants of familieswhose homes had been taken from them and theirparents butchered or hanged. The raiment of Marcoand his wife was of coarse tow-linen and linsey-woolseyrespectively, and resembled township maps, it beingmade up pretty exclusively of patches which had beenadded, township by township, in the course of five orsix years, until hardly a hand's-breadth of the originalgarments was surviving and present. Now I wantedto fit these people out with new suits, on account ofthat swell company, and I didn't know just how to getat it -- with delicacy, until at last it struck me that as Ihad already been liberal in inventing wordy gratitudefor the king, it would be just the thing to back it upwith evidence of a substantial sort; so I said:"And Marco, there's another thing which you mustpermit -- out of kindness for Jones -- because youwouldn't want to offend him. He was very anxiousto testify his appreciation in some way, but he is sodiffident he couldn't venture it himself, and so hebegged me to buy some little things and give them toyou and Dame Phyllis and let him pay for them without your ever knowing they came from him -- youknow how a delicate person feels about that sort ofthing -- and so I said I would, and we would keepmum. Well, his idea was, a new outfit of clothes foryou both --""Oh, it is wastefulness! It may not be, brother, itmay not be. Consider the vastness of the sum --""Hang the vastness of the sum! Try to keep quietfor a moment, and see how it would seem; a bodycan't get in a word edgeways, you talk so much. Youought to cure that, Marco; it isn't good form, youknow, and it will grow on you if you don't check it.Yes, we'll step in here now and price this man's stuff-- and don't forget to remember to not let on to Jonesthat you know he had anything to do with it. Youcan't think how curiously sensitive and proud he is.He's a farmer -- pretty fairly well-to-do farmer -- anI'm his bailiff; but -- the imagination of that man!Why, sometimes when he forgets himself and gets toblowing off, you'd think he was one of the swells ofthe earth; and you might listen to him a hundredyears and never take him for a farmer -- especially ifhe talked agriculture. He thinks he's a Sheol of afarmer; thinks he's old Grayback from Wayback; butbetween you and me privately he don't know as muchabout farming as he does about running a kingdom --still, whatever he talks about, you want to drop yourunderjaw and listen, the same as if you had neverheard such incredible wisdom in all your life before,and were afraid you might die before you got enoughof it. That will please Jones."It tickled Marco to the marrow to hear about suchan odd character; but it also prepared him for accidents; and in my experience when you travel with aking who is letting on to be something else and can'tremember it more than about half the time, you can'ttake too many precautions.This was the best store we had come across yet; ithad everything in it, in small quantities, from anvilsand drygoods all the way down to fish and pinchbeckjewelry. I concluded I would bunch my whole invoiceright here, and not go pricing around any more. SoI got rid of Marco, by sending him off to invite themason and the wheelwright, which left the field free tome. For I never care to do a thing in a quiet way;it's got to be theatrical or I don't take any interest init. I showed up money enough, in a careless way, tocorral the shopkeeper's respect, and then I wrote downa list of the things I wanted, and handed it to him tosee if he could read it. He could, and was proud toshow that he could. He said he had been educated bya priest, and could both read and write. He ran itthrough, and remarked with satisfaction that it was apretty heavy bill. Well, and so it was, for a littleconcern like that. I was not only providing a swelldinner, but some odds and ends of extras. I orderedthat the things be carted out and delivered at thedwelling of Marco, the son of Marco, by Saturdayevening, and send me the bill at dinner-time Sunday.He said I could depend upon his promptness and exactitude, it was the rule of the house. He also observedthat he would throw in a couple of miller-guns for theMarcos gratis -- that everybody was using them now.He had a mighty opinion of that clever device. I said:"And please fill them up to the middle mark, too;and add that to the bill."He would, with pleasure. He filled them, and Itook them with me. I couldn't venture to tell himthat the miller-gun was a little invention of my own,and that I had officially ordered that every shopkeeperin the kingdom keep them on hand and sell them atgovernment price -- which was the merest trifle, andthe shopkeeper got that, not the government. Wefurnished them for nothing.The king had hardly missed us when we got back atnightfall. He had early dropped again into his dreamof a grand invasion of Gaul with the whole strength ofhis kingdom at his back, and the afternoon had slippedaway without his ever coming to himself again.