Mark Twain Tells About the Cat.
HAMILTON, Bermuda, April 10. - A distinguished party consisting of Earl Grey, Governor General of Canada, Lady Grey, S. L. Clemens, (Mark Twain,) Mr. and Mrs. H. H. Rogers, and Lieut. Gen. and Mrs. Wodehouse made a trip to the coral reefs on Wednesday as the guests of the Bermuda Natural History Society.
They entered the glass-bottomed boat as the steam launch came to a stop about three miles out from Hamilton, and gazing down into the crystal clear depths, they admired the waving sea fans, the graceful coral formations, and the many brilliant rainbow hued fishes that played about beneath them. The party spent the better part of an hour looking at the wonders of this varied marine life. On the trip back they were entertained by Mark Twain's comments and stories which he has always ready for the occasion. It was while viewing the parade of the Forty-sixth Regiment at Prospect on Sunday last that Col. Chapman invited him to address the children of the garrison school. He consented, and next day appeared before them with a solemn mien.
"As I was on my way up the hill," he said, "I saw a cat jump over a wall, and that reminded me of a little incident of my childhood that may interest you. I was a little boy once upon a time, and before that I was a little girl, perhaps, though I don't remember it.
"There was a good deal of cholera around the Mississippi Valley in those days, and my mother used to dose up children with a medicine called Patterson's Patent Pain Killer. She had an idea that the cholera was worse than the medicine, but then she had never taken the stuff. It went down our insides like liquid fire and fairly doubled us up. I suppose we took fifty bottles of that pain killer in our family. I used to feed mine to a crack in the floor of our room when no one was looking.
"One day when I was doing this our cat, whose name was Peter, came into the room, and I looked at him and wondered if he might not like some of that pain killer. He looked hungry, and it seemed to me that a little of it might do him good. So I just poured out the bottle and put it before him. He did not seem to get the real effect of it at first, but pretty soon I saw him turn and look at me with a queer expression in his eyes, and the next minute he jumped to the window and went through it like a cyclone, taking all the flower pots with him; and seeing that cat on the wall just now reminded me of the little incident of my childhood after many years."
Earl Grey met the children of the garrison school and told them about his plans for a great celebration of the Canadian Tercentenary. He said that it would cost a hundred thousand pounds to buy the Plains of Abraham, the scene of the famous battle, and that he hoped to raise that amount by subscriptions of threepences from all the quarters of the British Empire. The names of the subscribers would be enrolled in vellum scrolls and deposited in the great monument, which it is purposed to erect on the scene of the historic event.
"Gentlemen, you have remarked that my visit is a new departure of a Governor General of Canada. Well, I believe that to be true, but I also believe that if I am the first to visit Bermuda I shall not be the last.
"If you resolve to have the best transportation service and the
best hotels, you will encourage people from abroad to make homes in your
islands, and I believe Providence has destined them to become in ever-increasing
degree the Winter homes and the market garden of the Canadian people"
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