Io6 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 



nobody said anything. However, I had been used to this kind of alacrity from 

 Fourth-Assistant- Junior Clerks all through my eventful career, from the very 

 day I entered the first office of the Corn-Beef Bureau clear till I passed out of 

 the last one in the Dead Reckoning Division. I had got so accomplished by 

 this time that I could stand on one foot from the moment I entered an office till 

 a clerk spoke to me, without changing more than two, or maybe three times. 



So I stood there till I had changed four different times. Then I said to one of 

 the clerks who was reading — 



" Illustrious Vagrant, where is the Grand Turk ? " 



" What do you mean, sir ? whom do you mean ? If you mean the Chief of the 

 Bureau, he is out." 



" Will he visit the harem to-day .' " 



The young man glared upon me awhile, and then went on reading his paper. 

 But I knew the ways of those clerks. I knew I was safe if he got through before 

 another New York mail arrived. He only had two more papers left. After 

 awhile he finished them, and then he yawned and asked me what I wanted. 



" Renowned and honored Imbecile : On or about " 



" You are the beef contract man. Give me your papers." 



He took them, and for a long time he ransacked his odds and ends. Finally 

 he found the North- West Passage, as / regarded it — he found the long-lost 

 record of that beef contract — he found the rock upon which so many of my 

 ancestors had split before they ever got to it. I was deeply moved. And yet I 

 rejoiced — for I had survived. I said with emotion, " Give it me. The Govern- 

 ment will settle now." He waved me back, and said there was something yet to 

 be done first. 



"Where is this John Wilson Mackenzie?" said he. 



" Dead." 



"When did he die?" 



"He didn't die at all— he was killed." 



" How ? " 



" Tomahawked." 



" Who tomahawked him ? " 



