I lived in Hannibal fifteen and a half years, altogether, then ran away, according to the custom of persons who are intending to become celebrated.

I never lived there afterward.

Four years later I became a "cub" on a Mississippi steamboat in the St.Louis and New Orleans trade, and after a year and a half of hard study and hard work the U.S.inspectors rigorously examined me through a couple of long sittings and decided that I knew every inch of the Mississippi--thirteen hundred miles--in the dark and in the day--as well as a baby knows the way to its mother's paps day or night.

So they licensed me as a pilot--knighted me, so to speak--and I rose up clothed with authority, a responsible servant of the United States government.
Now then.

Shakespeare died young--he was only fifty-two.