Show written for or this paper THREE FAMOUS FUNNY FELLOWS by bv frank G Oar carpenter penter IM 1896 washington november 9 1895 eugene field dead I 1 mark twain ruined bill nyc overwork edl HESE ARE RE cent items ot of news about men whose wit a and n d pathos have made the world most laugh and c cry r y V y during the past decade the stories of the lives of funny men is often full of sadness it requires hard knocks to develop the genius of such souls and behind the poetry and humor may be found trouble and the heart breaking which has enabled them to know the human heart and by their pens to play the saddest and the merriest of strains upon its strings how few geniuses are appreciated when they are young eugene fields father was a celebrated lawyer but he evidently had no idea of the literary ability of his son the boy almost spoiled by the fortune fortune left him drifted into newspaper wor kand thence step by step chimed into the literary niche which he will now hold in american history mark twains kwains father and himself according to his own statements wire were always on the most distant terms when mark was a boy and he says that a sort of armed neutrality existed between them his father had no appreciation of his humorous antics and the stories which are related in tom sawyer were largely based upon incidents of mark twains kwains early life which had no charm for his lather father the old man could not see the humor ot jumping oft a i two story stable and when mark at a circus gave the elephant a plug of tobacco and the hubbub which followed was by no means with the approval ol of the old man who had 1 gone along to take care of the boy and look at the animals at another time mark pretended to be talking in his sleep and got off a portion ofa of a very original in in the hearing of his father the elder clemens reproved him in a way which he does not like to remember to this day in speaking of it mark asks his friends not to pry into the results of the experiment usually concluding with the sorrowful remark it was of no consequence to any one but me it was the same with james whitcomb riley his father never appreciated him and I 1 doubt whether he ever realized the greatness of rileys wileys genius A short time ago riley and one of his newspaper friends were talking about the days of their boyhood when riley rilea said they never thought id amount to much at home my mv father was a country lawyer and he believed in facts facts were all he cared for and he thought that the boy who learn arithmetic amount to anything my brothers were a good deal like him they had an aptitude for mathematics and they stood well in their classes at school As for me I 1 learn arithmetic I 1 11 I 1 never liked the blanked crooked things called figures and I 1 see the sense of working at them As for reading I 1 got along with it very well I 1 usually read the books through tor for the stories before the class had mastered one third of them but I 1 make it in arithmetic the result was that the whole family pitied me I 1 was told again and again that I 1 would probably have to be supported by the rest and when I 1 ran off on and went away with a circus one day to stand at the door and extol the virtues of the sideshows it did not make a sensation my mother perhaps wiped her eyes and thought that I 1 might come back some day some way but with the rest it was settled with the phrase 11 1 I told you so I 1 dont think my father ever understood me I 1 shall never forget one thing which estranged me from him it was when I 1 was quite a little f fellow ellow we were just commencing a new reader and as usual I 1 had bad finished it before the class had read ten lessons there we several pieces of peotry in the book and one of these I 1 read over and over again it was very pathetic and I 1 always had to cry when I 1 read it at last the class came to it the day we were to read it I 1 sat in my seat beat and figured just what verses 1 I would have to read I 1 knew where I 1 stood in the class you know well I 1 saw that I 1 would have to read those verses where I 1 always cried I 1 knew I 1 could ni read them before the class without crying and I 1 going to bawl in public there was only one way out of it and that was to run away just before the class was called and while the ter chers back was turned I 1 slipped out I 1 had hardly left the school house before I 1 I 1 met my father he asked me what I 1 was doing away from school I 1 had luit been reading the life ol of george washington and I 1 concluded that I 1 would tell the truth saying father I 1 want the boys to laugh at me and I 1 knew it would make me cry f well I 1 see it if I 1 cant make you cry said the old gentl gentleman man and he picked up a switch and gave me one of the best whippings I 1 have ever had I 1 dont blame him now his nature was such that he could not appreciate the situation he probably thought my answer was merely an excuse to get out ot of the school but the injustice of it was such that it was a long time before I 1 felt close to my father again after going away from home I 1 drifted about here and there and finally turned up at indianapolis di in the journal office I 1 be b e gan to write poetry and in time became rather notorious for that tha people of indianapolis made a good deal of me and now and then rumors of my reputation reached the little country town where my father was living he see what the people saw in those things of mine to be worthy so much money and he finally gave up trying to understand it 1 I went down to see him frequently and one day I 1 persuaded him to come up with me to indianapolis when we arrived in the city I 1 asked father to come with me to a clothing store he i was pretty well dressed for a country lawyer but not quite as well as I 1 thought he ought to be for indianapolis I 1 bought him a new outfit from shoes to hat and then took him home to my hotel I 1 told the landlord that we wan wanted fed the best rooms in the house I 1 took him about the city with me and everywhere he went he was pointed out as jim im rileys wileys father I 1 tell you that di did me go good it was wa the proudest day of my life 10 1 I wish you could have seen riley when he said that the newspaper man went on triumphs ot of that kind are really great triumphs of ones life we like to have the world speak well pt of us but it is only the praise of the people at home that we really care for now take bill nye hi his s experience was much the same as that of riley we were talking about it the last time I 1 saw him the nye family came from vermont and of the whole tribe they thought that little edgar wilson would amount to the least he was rather sickly and when he started west to go just as faras far as he could go there was not much grieving the rest of the family famil matter of fact people were doing well and two of the boys who like rileys wileys arithmetical brothers knew something ot of figures bad gone to minneapolis to practice law bill nye went as far as wyoming before he stopped he made a reputation there in connection with the laramie boomerang and then came east and increased it he now gets get more than the salary ot of the chief justice of the united states out of his newspaper work alone and his lecture bust busi n ness es is equal to the interest on a good sized fortune he has almost entirely recovered his health which chic has been temporarily deranged from overwork and with a tittle little care he will come out all right he is at any rate practically independent his father still lives on his vermont farm he and bill correspond now and then and not long alto ago the old farmer wrote his boy that he believed he would sell his farm he said it was heavily mortgaged and it was all he could do to pay the interest he had written to bills brothers in minneapolis they seem to be able todo to t o do anything he still owed 2500 and he was an old man this was too winch much for him to carry land and he thought he would sell As bi bill nye read this his eyes eyes began to fill he e is you know a mighty sensitive fellow with all his fun he happened to have some money on deposit in the bank and he took out his bis check book an I 1 fil filed ed out a check for pa 2500 oo 00 he signed it in such big letters that it almost covered the face of of tile the check and wrote his name in full edgar adgar wilson nye thisbe sent to hill his tat father er and told him to pay off the mortgage and as he did so away down in his chis soul sou 11 I 1 venture said he to himself 4 well i I 1 guess think something now of the sickly little cuss whom they ey thought they would have to support who know figures and who had to go west to make his bis fortune I 1 see see it stated that james whitcomb riley is to go on the lecture platform again this winter if this is true he has changed his bis mind during the last lew jew months at indianapolis I 1 was told that the thebert best way to make james Jamea whitcomb riley angry was to mention the word lecture jand and that he had given the work up for good A close friend ot of his who has much to do with his legal busi swiss told me how ri ey recently received a big lecture offer from new york A manager there wrote offering him 1000 for four lectures riley went to the telegraph office and promptly declined and he said at the time thal thai me ahe knowledge that he could afford to refuse an offer of that kind made hint him hap happy y he has been making a great deafoe deal of money out ot his books of late years and his income is now bigger than that of a congressman he I 1 is s nt not an extravagant man and he lives quietly in indianapolis with his brother in law who by the way has a good deal to 00 in the management oi ot his business he reads a great deal and during the past two years has been devoting himself to the english classics he asvery is very fond of longfellow andone and one of his grea greatest favorites is robert burns the real secret ot of mark twains kwains tour around the world is the publication of a new book of travels his lecturing will pay his bis expenses and will net him d a small I 1 sum pum but in alt all probability not enough to pay his debts A new book of travels will bring him tens of thou sands of dollars and it will have a sale all over the world mark twains kwains ex 41 peri pe ence in book publishing has given him a knowledge of what sells best and he has great faith in travel not long ago I 1 called upon him bim at hartford to bet el his advice as to a book ot this kind n answer he drawled out the following there esthere is only one kind of a book that will sel better than a book of travels navels and a pious book he then went on to tell rue me something about his own experience in travel work and glav gave e me a jar different story as to some of them than that generally believed lie he told me that the publish ers rs and not the authors made as a rule the most of the money out of a book and he said he got ot a royalty ot of only five per cent on ane ane innocents abroad or from fulwoo to io twenty five cents per volume he will do beauer with his round the world travel for he fie will publish puah it hink himself self lie he told ane that the company that published the innocents abroad made a for tune out of it and upon asking him if i his s royalty was not a very small one he replied no not as such things usually go though I 1 thought it was when I 1 made the contract I 1 I 1 was advised to accept it however by my friend A D richardson who told me that he only got four per cent for writing beyond the mississippi and five per cent was a good gooc royalty one hundred and twenty five thousand copies of the innocents abroad were sold within three years alter after it was published and the hartford publishing company which issued it made more than xo oooo out of it I 1 doubt whether mark twain got and it was probably through his desire to remedy such an unjust division of the profits that he went into the firm ol of charles L webster co through which he issued many of his bis books and in in connection with which he lost his fortune I 1 have heard it said that mr clemens will issue a now new volume ot of travels upon his return and there is no doubt bat that if he does so it will be he who will make and the publishing company that will get the smaller end of the profits it was here in washington that the innocents abroad was written it was away back in 1868 when mark twain was thirty two years old he was at the tims tima writing letters for the san francisco newspapers and adding to his income by a salary ot of 6 a day as a clerk of one of the committees of the united states senate senator stewart the famous advocat advocated er of the silver question was the chairman of the committee and he gave clemens the job in order that he might have the leisure to write the book there was vas little work connected with the committee and senator stewart hired a man at aioo per month to do the work he had seen clemens notes of his trip with that party of pilgrims who went through the holy land and he bi believed with him that the book would be a success however hard a worker he may have become afterwards mark twain at this time liked to loaf as well as write and it was all that senator stewart and his bis friends could do to get him at his work after he be got started however he kept it up like a steam engine he wrote from noon till midnight every day and he fini finished thed the book in two months every line of it was penned with his own hand band and he had no stenographer or typewriter to help him along this is the way he does most of his wot woi kand when he has a book on an hand he be makes it a principle to stick to it until he gets through writing a certain amount every day lie he was very particular in the composition of the innocents bs abroad and he tore up many a chapter before he got the matter into the shape in which it was published he wrote the pook book in a little back room on F street in in a part of the city which has since been given up to business and a man who knew him at the time tells me that mark twain had about the dirtiest room he ever saw it was heated said he by a little drum stove which was tull full of f asheila d out of which a great dust came when edtl abit a bit of coal was thrown into it the air was sour with tobacco smoke and 06 ha cigar ashes was scattered over the he carpet the floor was littered with newspaper clippings and ma mark rk twain with his coat and vest off worked away at the book in the midst of the muss he seldom stopped work before midnight and would sit up until nearly morning reading smoking and sinking singing OP the success bucce S s of the work was a great surprise to him and he proudly wrote one of his friends shortly after it was published that it had taken thirty tons of paper to print it I 1 have been over most of the ground which is described deseri bed in in it and it was wonderfully true to the life it is far more accurate than many of the guide books and mr clemens must have made every full notes in the midst of the scenes which he describes the books which followed paid him much better as far as royalty wa was s concerned and the royalties which he received from dramatization of his stories have been considerable the gilded age in which john T raymond made an international reputation lor for colonel mulberry sellers was especially profitable in connection with this I 1 saw the other day an oil painting with raymond and twain standing together shaking hands with each other the painting was fram d in the refuse pu p which comes from the grinding up ol of old green backs by the treasury department on a brass plate below it were printed the words which so olten often came from colonel sellers mouth Aliff millions ions in its it and as I 1 looked I 1 could not help wishing that these words would tell the story of the results of mark twains |