MARK TWAIN

not. He has already written interminable poems on "The
Good Ship Quaker City" and an "Ode to the Ocean" and
"Recollections of the Pleasant Time on Deck Last Night,"
which pleasant time consisting in his reciting some 75
stanzas of his poetry to a large party of passengers con-
vened on the upper deck.

Dan said to him in a private conversation:

"It must be a great happiness to you to be able to sit
down at the close of the clay and put its events all down
in rhymes and poetry, like a Byron and a Shakespeare
and those fellows."

"O, yes, it is—it is. There is no pleasure like it in the
world,"

"Yes—and I should think that when a man was gifted
in that way, more would be expected of him than from
common people—from people who ain't poets. You'd be
expected, you know, to keep that talent going at all rea-
sonable times, and never lose an opportunity. It's a duty
you owe to your countrymen and your race, you know."

"I know. I appreciate it. I do keep it a-going. Why,
bless your soul, many and many a time when everybody
else is asleep you'll find me writing poetry. And when I
feel it coming on, there's no let-up to me."

"That's it! That's it! Often, no doubt, when you're
talking to people or looking at anything, or eating dinner,
it comes on you, and every thought that clatters through
your head fetches up with a rhyme at the end of it—
pure, honest, natural-born poetry—ain't it so!"

"Bless your soul, yes. Many's the time I've had to leave
my dinner and many's the time I've had to get up in
the night when it came on me. At such times as that, I
can't any more talk without rhyming than you could put
fire to powder and it not go off. Why bless me, this ship
may go to the bottom any moment and drown us all but
what of that?

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