Abroad with Mark Twain and Eugene Field

Chapter 65: MARK’S IDIOMATIC GEMS

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About This Book

A travel-writer recounts his time with two well-known American humorists while they lived and circulated in European cities, presenting a series of anecdotal sketches and recollections. The pieces capture their conversation, mannerisms, and responses to social customs, language, royalty, art, and contemporary personalities; they mix light-hearted episodes, reflections on fame and temperament, and brief critical remarks about literary and political topics. The arrangement is episodic rather than continuous, offering vivid vignettes that illuminate public and private behavior abroad.

MARK’S IDIOMATIC GEMS

“Of course you have had no serious quarrel with the Church?” he was asked by Dr. Dryander, the former Kaiser’s body chaplain.

“Oh, my, no—far from it,” vowed Mark. “Such expressions as ‘the duck that runs the gospel mill’ and ‘the boss of the doxology works who waltzed a dead ’un through handsome,’ are idiomatic gems I picked up in the mining camps. They are not meant in derision.

“William was talking with my cousin, General Von Versen,” added Mark, “reporting the case at Mr. Phelps’ office a few days afterwards—otherwise, you may be sure, he would have ordered me flayed alive, for isn’t he the identical gander bossing the German gospel mill?”