320 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 



presto ! — I was a pauper ! It was the neatest thing that ever was. He did it 

 simply by deftly manipulating the bill of " Deductions." He set down my 

 "State, national, and municipal taxes" at so much; my "losses by shipwreck, 

 fire, etc.," at so much; my "losses on sales of real estate" — on "live stock sold" 

 — on payments for rent of homestead " — on " repairs, improvements, interest " — on 

 " previously taxed salary as an officer of the United States' army, navy, revenue 

 service," and other things. He got astonishing " deductions " out of each and 

 every one of these matters — each and every one of them. And when he was done 

 he handed me the paper, and I saw at a glance that during the year my income, in 

 the way pf profits, had been otie thousand two hundred and fifty dollars and forty cents. 



" Now," said he, " the thousand dollars is exempt by law. What you want to do 

 is to go and swear this document in and pay tax on the two hundred and fifty 

 dollars." 



[While he was making this speech his little boy Willie lifted a two dollar green- 

 back out of his vest pocket and vanished with it, and I would wager anything that 

 if my stranger were to call on that little boy to-morrow he would make a false 

 return of his income.] 



" Do you," said I, "do you always work up the 'deductions' after this fashion in 

 your own case, sir ? " 



"Well, I should say so! If it weren't for those eleven saving clauses under the 

 head of 'Deduction' I should be beggared every year to support this hateful and 

 wicked, this extortionate and tyrannical government." 



This gentleman stands away up among the very best of the solid men of the 

 city — the men of moral weight, of commercial integrity, of unimpeachable social 

 spotlessness — and so I bowed to his example. I went down to the revenue office, 

 and under the accusing eyes of my old visitor I stood up and swore to lie after lie, 

 fraud after fraud, villainy after villainy, till my soul was coated inches and inches 

 thick with perjury, and my self-respect gone for ever and ever. 



But what of it .' It is nothing more than thousands of the richest and proudest, 

 and most respected, honored, and courted men in America do every year. And so 

 I don't care. I am not ashamed. I shall simply, for the present, talk little, and 

 eschew fire-proof gloves, lest I fall into certain dreadful habits irrevocably. 



THK END. 



