Sketches New and Old, Part 7. Read online

  A MYSTERIOUS VISIT

  The first notice that was taken of me when I "settled down" recently wasby a gentleman who said he was an assessor, and connected with the U. S.Internal Revenue Department. I said I had never heard of his branch ofbusiness before, but I was very glad to see him all the same. Would hesit down? He sat down. I did not know anything particular to say, andyet I felt that people who have arrived at the dignity of keeping housemust be conversational, must be easy and sociable in company. So, indefault of anything else to say, I asked him if he was opening his shopin our neighborhood.

  He said he was. [I did not wish to appear ignorant, but I had hoped hewould mention what he had for sale.]

  I ventured to ask him "How was trade?" And he said "So-so."

  I then said we would drop in, and if we liked his house as well as anyother, we would give him our custom.

  He said he thought we would like his establishment well enough to confineourselves to it--said he never saw anybody who would go off and hunt upanother man in his line after trading with him once.

  That sounded pretty complacent, but barring that natural expression ofvillainy which we all have, the man looked honest enough.

  I do not know how it came about exactly, but gradually we appeared tomelt down and run together, conversationally speaking, and theneverything went along as comfortably as clockwork.

  We talked, and talked, and talked--at least I did; and we laughed, andlaughed, and laughed--at least he did. But all the time I had mypresence of mind about me--I had my native shrewdness turned on "fullhead," as the engineers say. I was determined to find out all about hisbusiness in spite of his obscure answers--and I was determined I wouldhave it out of him without his suspecting what I was at. I meant to traphim with a deep, deep ruse. I would tell him all about my own business,and he would naturally so warm to me during this seductive burst ofconfidence that he would forget himself, and tell me all about hisaffairs before he suspected what I was about. I thought to myself, Myson, you little know what an old fox you are dealing with. I said:

  "Now you never would guess what I made lecturing this winter and lastspring?"

  "No--don't believe I could, to save me. Let me see--let me see. Abouttwo thousand dollars, maybe? But no; no, sir, I know you couldn't havemade that much. Say seventeen hundred, maybe?"

  "Ha! ha! I knew you couldn't. My lecturing receipts for last spring andthis winter were fourteen thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars. Whatdo you think of that?"

  "Why, it is amazing-perfectly amazing. I will make a note of it. Andyou say even this wasn't all?"

  "All! Why bless you, there was my income from the Daily Warwhoop forfour months--about--about--well, what should you say to about eightthousand dollars, for instance?"

  "Say! Why, I should say I should like to see myself rolling in just suchanother ocean of affluence. Eight thousand! I'll make a note of it.Why man!--and on top of all this am I to understand that you had stillmore income?"

  "Ha! ha! ha! Why, you're only in the suburbs of it, so to speak.There's my book, The Innocents Abroad price $3.50 to $5, according to thebinding. Listen to me. Look me in the eye. During the last four monthsand a half, saying nothing of sales before that, but just simply duringthe four months and a half, we've sold ninety-five thousand copies ofthat book. Ninety-five thousand! Think of it. Average four dollars acopy, say. It's nearly four hundred thousand dollars, my son. I gethalf."

  "The suffering Moses! I'll set that down. Fourteen-seven-fifty--eight--two hundred. Total, say--well, upon my word, the grand total isabout two hundred and thirteen or fourteen thousand dollars! Is thatpossible?"

  "Possible! If there's any mistake it's the other way. Two hundred andfourteen thousand, cash, is my income for this year if I know how tocipher."

  Then the gentleman got up to go. It came over me most uncomfortably thatmaybe I had made my revelations for nothing, besides being flattered intostretching them considerably by the stranger's astonished exclamations.But no; at the last moment the gentleman handed me a large envelope, andsaid it contained his advertisement; and that I would find out all abouthis business in it; and that he would be happy to have my custom-would,in fact, be proud to have the custom of a man of such prodigious income;and that he used to think there were several wealthy men in the city, butwhen they came to trade with him he discovered that they barely hadenough to live on; and that, in truth, it had been such a weary, wearyage since he had seen a rich man face to face, and talked to him, andtouched him with his hands, that he could hardly refrain from embracingme--in fact, would esteem it a great favor if I would let him embrace me.

  This so pleased me that I did not try to resist, but allowed thissimple-hearted stranger to throw his arms about me and weep a fewtranquilizing tears down the back of my neck. Then he went his way.

  As soon as he was gone I opened his advertisement. I studied itattentively for four minutes. I then called up the cook, and said:

  "Hold me while I faint! Let Marie turn the griddle-cakes."

  By and by, when I came to, I sent down to the rum-mill on the corner andhired an artist by the week to sit up nights and curse that stranger, andgive me a lift occasionally in the daytime when I came to a hard place.

  Ah, what a miscreant he was! His "advertisement" was nothing in theworld but a wicked tax-return--a string of impertinent questions aboutmy private affairs, occupying the best part of four fools-cap pages offine print-questions, I may remark, gotten up with such marvelousingenuity that the oldest man in the world couldn't understand what themost of them were driving at--questions, too, that were calculated tomake a man report about four times his actual income to keep fromswearing to a falsehood. I looked for a loophole, but there did notappear to be any. Inquiry No. 1 covered my case as generously and asamply as an umbrella could cover an ant-hill:

  What were your profits, during the past year, from any trade, business, or vocation, wherever carried on?

  And that inquiry was backed up by thirteen others of an equally searchingnature, the most modest of which required information as to whether I hadcommitted any burglary or highway robbery, or, by any arson or othersecret source of emolument had acquired property which was not enumeratedin my statement of income as set opposite to inquiry No. 1.

  It was plain that that stranger had enabled me to make a goose of myself.It was very, very plain; and so I went out and hired another artist.By working on my vanity, the stranger had seduced me into declaring anincome of two hundred and fourteen thousand dollars. By law, onethousand dollars of this was exempt from income tax--the only relief Icould see, and it was only a drop in the ocean. At the legal five percent., I must pay to the government the sum of ten thousand six hundredand fifty dollars, income tax!

  [I may remark, in this place, that I did not do it.]

  I am acquainted with a very opulent man, whose house is a palace, whosetable is regal, whose outlays are enormous, yet a man who has no income,as I have often noticed by the revenue returns; and to him I went foradvice in my distress. He took my dreadful exhibition of receipts, heput on his glasses, he took his pen, and presto!--I was a pauper! It wasthe neatest thing that ever was. He did it simply by deftly manipulatingthe bill of "DEDUCTIONS." He set down my "State, national, and municipaltaxes" 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 forrent of homestead"--on "repairs, improvements, interest"--on "previouslytaxed salary as an officer of the United States army, navy, revenueservice," and other things. He got astonishing "deductions" out of eachand every one of these matters--each and every one of them. And when hewas done he handed me the paper, and I saw at a glance that during theyear my income, in the way of profits, had been one thousand two hundredand fifty dollars and forty cents.

  "Now," said he, "the thousand dollars is exempt by law. What you want todo is to go and swear this document in and pay tax on the two hundred
andfifty dollars."

  [While he was making this speech his little boy Willie lifted atwo-dollar greenback out of his vest pocket and vanished with it, and Iwould wager; anything that if my stranger were to call on that little boyto-morrow he would make a false return of his income.]

  "Do you," said I, "do you always work up the 'deductions' after thisfashion in your own case, sir?"

  "Well, I should say so! If it weren't for those eleven saving clausesunder the head of 'Deductions' I should be beggared every year to supportthis hateful and wicked, this extortionate and tyrannical government."

  This gentleman stands away up among the very best of the solid men of thecity--the men of moral weight, of commercial integrity, of unimpeachable,social spotlessness--and so I bowed to his example. I went down to therevenue office, and under the accusing eyes of my old visitor I stood upand swore to lie after lie, fraud after fraud, villainy after villainy,till my soul was coated inches and inches thick with perjury, and myself-respect gone for ever and ever.

  But what of it? It is nothing more than thousands of the richest andproudest, and most respected, honored, and courted men in America doevery 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 fallinto certain dreadful habits irrevocably.