Mr.
Clemens was induced to introduce Messrs. Riley and Nye. His
appearance on the platform was a surprise to the audience, and
when they recognized him there was a tremendous demonstration.
I am very glad indeed to introduce these young people to you, and at the
same time get acquainted with them myself. I have seen them more than
once for a moment, but have not had the privilege of knowing them
personally as intimately as I wanted to. I saw them first, a great many
years ago, when Mr. Barnum had them, and they were just fresh from Siam.
The ligature was their best hold then, the literature became their best
hold later, when one of them committed an indiscretion, and they had to
cut the old bond to accommodate the sheriff.
In that old former time this one was Chang, that one was Eng. The
sympathy existing between the two was most extraordinary; it was so fine,
so strong, so subtle, that what the one ate the other digested; when one
slept, the other snored; if one sold a thing, the other scooped the
usufruct. This independent and yet dependent action was observable in
all the details of their daily life--I mean this quaint and arbitrary
distribution of originating cause and resulting effect between the two
--between, I may say, this dynamo and the other always motor, or, in
other words, that the one was always the creating force, the other always
the utilizing force; no, no, for while it is true that within certain
well-defined zones of activity the one was always dynamo and the other
always motor, within certain other well-defined zones these positions
became exactly reversed.
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