l86 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 



the young ladies will sing again the hymns made dear by sweet associations 

 connected with the jail, and, as a last tribute of affection, respect, and apprecia- 

 tion of your many sterling qualities, they will walk two and two around your 

 bier, and strew wreaths of flowers on it. And lo ! you are canonized. Think 

 of it, son — ingrate, assassin, robber of the dead, drunken brawler among thieves 

 and harlots in the slums of Boston one month, and the pet of the pure and 

 innocent daughters of the land the next ! A bloody and hateful devil — a bewept, 

 bewailed, and sainted martyr — all in a month! Fool! — so noble a fortune, and 

 yet you sit here grieving !" 



" No, madame," I said, " you do me wrong, you do indeed. I am perfectly 

 satisfied. I did not knovv before that my great-gra-ndfather was hanged, but it 

 is of no consequence. He has probably ceased to bother about it by this time — 

 and I have not commenced yet. ,1 confess, madame, that I do something in the 

 way of editing and lecturing, but the other crimes you mention have escaped 

 my memory. Yet I must have committed them — you would not deceive a 

 stranger. But let the past be as it was, and let the future be as it may — these 

 are nothing. I have only cared for one thing. I have always felt that I should 

 be hanged some day, and somehow the thought, has annoyed me considerably; 

 but if you can only assure me that I shall be hanged in New Hampshire" 



" Not a shadow of a doubt !"' 



"Bless you, my benefactress! — excuse this embrace — you have removed a 

 great load frorri my breast. To be hanged in New Hampshire is happiness — it 

 leaves an honored name behind a man, and introduces him at once into the 

 best New Hampshire society in the other world." 



I then took leave of the fortune-teller. But, seriously, is it well to glorify a 

 murderous villain on the scaffold, as Pike was glorified in New Hampshire? 

 Is it- well to turn the penalty for a bloody crime into a reward? Is it just to do 

 it? Is it safe? 



