Abroad with Mark Twain and Eugene Field/Mark—Regicide
MARK—REGICIDE
"I have been reading up on the laws dealing with regicide," I heard Mark Twain tell Minister Phelps one morning in dead seriousness, "and do you know what they are going to do with me? Three or four things.
"First, they will cut my right hand off, and then hit me on the mouth with it, by way of reproof, I suppose. Second, they'll hari-kari me and build a little fire to do my insides brown—all the time keeping me alive for the rest of the show. That will take some stimulants, I reckon.
"Third, they'll hang me by the neck until I am stone dead. Whether I will get my inards and my hand back before they send me to wormland, I don't know."
"What are you talking about?" queried Mr. Phelps.
"Why, you made me admit yesterday to Count Seckendorff that the judge who sent Charles the First to the block was a near relative of mine. Now, as soon as Willie hears about that, he will have my hands, my inards or anything else he craves of my anatomy."
Of course, everybody roared, and Mr. Phelps had to explain that at dinner the night before, one of the guests, the nobleman mentioned, who was the favorite of the Empress Frederick, had boasted a lot of his ancestry; grandfathers and uncles of his had been present at every great battle the world over and had, of course, always fought on the winning side. Later, when the company was looking at some engravings, Mr. Phelps, in a joke, pointed to the figure of a Puritan, saying, with a merry twinkle in his eye:
"Ancestor of mine."
The picture happened to illustrate the trial of Charles the First of England. Now, not to be outdone, Twain pointed to the Lord Judge on the woolsack, and matched Phelps' lie.
"My ancestor, if you please." He made the statement at the very moment when Count Seckendorff looked at the picture. Hence, Mark's awful apprehensions.
"Regicide," he told us, "is never outlawed by the lapse of time. When Charles the First's son was restored to the throne, hundreds of dead regicides were pulled out of their graves by the ears and hanged and quartered. As to the living, they were treated as I described, and I am afraid that if Seckendorff reports me (Willie being half English) I will be punished just as if I had made Charles a head shorter myself, yesterday afternoon."