MARK TWAIN

Rooms astonishingly small—partitions astonishingly
thin—parlor the size and shape of a grand piano. Very
funny hotel. Landlord shows lady through with his hat
on. Fat, red, ignorant, made of pretty coarse clay, pos-
sibly mud.

At Waitukuran, Dec. 2. Stopped 20 minutes for lunch-
eon. I sat at head of table, then Livy, Clara and Smythe.
Mirror in front of them. But Livy hadn't her glasses on
and couldn't see anything in it. I saw two pictures on the
distant wall and made up my mind that one of them was

the Death of ----- Broke into the conversation—"Do

you remember when the news came to Paris?"

"Of the killing of the prince?"

"The very words I was going to say. But what prince?"

"Napoleon."

There was no conclusion. The picture was not his mur-
der—so it was not the picture itself that I conveyed to
her but my notion of what the picture was.

Dec. 5. Left for Hawera 8 A.M. Yesterday lunatic
burst into my parlor and warned me that the Jesuits
were going to cook (poison) me, in my food, or kill me
on the street at night. Said a mysterious sign was visible
upon my posters and meant my death. Said the Century
was a Jesuit magazine; that the editors were a man and
his two sisters, that they were Jesuit tools and were
steeped in carnage and murder. Had written them and so
charged them, and they were dumb and could not deny
the charge. Saved Haweis's life by warning him that there
were three men on his platform who would kill him if he
took his eyes off them for a moment during his lecture.
He has saved so many lives in 20 years in that way that
they put him in the asylum.

Lectured.

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