Mark Twain’s scandalous witty mind.

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Mark Twain’s scandalous witty mind.

Mark Twain, a great American writer, amazed people with his quick and witty mind, which he showed not only in his wonderful stories. He was able to shock people belonging to any society not just in his books. For example, during one of set dinners Twain introduced Henry Longfellow and Ralf Emerson (who were very popular in America people at the time) as two cunning skint bums who did a snow-job on every decent worker. He even claimed this in front of both “skint bums”. The scandal was successfully hushed since Mark Twain wrote apologizing letters to poor fellows who had been made fun of.

In spite of the fact that the writer’s tongue often caused lots of troubles, Mark Twain couldn’t but resort to evil words and wicked jokes now and then. Once he was invited to the banquet in honour of General Grant. The writer was asked by his acquaintances to take the floor. The speech was small and totally improvised. Mark Twain thought only for a second or two, and then he got up and announced with great inspiration: “The future of the United States of America is yet divided into several million of cribs. Who knows, maybe in one of these cribs right now is lying an infant who is destined to become the greatest commander. Right at this moment he must be busy trying to put his little toes into his mouth with a most serious expression on his face.”

General Grant was well-known for his severity and seriousness. It was obvious that everyone at the banquet were embarrassed and waited for his reaction. Meanwhile Mark Twain continued: “Just fifty six years ago out General Grant too surely was trying to make such a strategic operation too…”

All the guests seemed to be shocked. Evidently, the scandal was inevitable. But to everybody’s surprise, Mark Twain finished his improvised speech in a very elegant manner: “ Such a child is sure to become a bright individual! And nobody here today doubts that the child managed to do it perfectly?” The hall burst out with applause.

Mark Twain briefly described in his diary what happened next when an official part of the banquet was finally over: “I was introduced to a famous General Grant. I told him that I was very pleased to meet him but for some unknown reasons the General replied that he couldn’t claim the same…”