Now, the Special English program American Stories. Our story today is called "Luck". It was written by Mark Twain. Here is Shep O'Neal with the story.

I was at a dinner in London given an honor of one of the most celebrated English military men of his time. I do not want to tell you his real name and titles. I will just call him Lieutenant General Lord Arthur Scoresby. I can not describe my excitement when I saw this great and famous man. There he sat, the man himself, in person, all covered with metals. I could not take my eyes off him. He seemed to show the true mark of greatness, his fame had no effect on him. The hundreds of eyes watching him, the worship of so many people did not seem to make any difference to him.

Next to me sat the clergyman who was an old friend of mine. He was not always a clergyman. During the first half of his life he was a teacher in the military school at Woolwich. There was a strange look in his eye as he leaned toward me and whispered, "Privately, he is a complete fool!'' He meant, of course, the hero of our dinner. This came as a shock to me. I looked hard at my friend. I could not have been more surprised if he had said the same thing about Napoleon or Socrates or Solomon. But I was sure of two things about the clergyman: he always spoke the truth and his judgment of men was good. Therefore, I wanted to find out more about our hero as soon as I could.

Some days later, I got a chance to talk with the clergyman and he told me more. These are his exact words.

About forty years ago, I was an instructor in the military academy at Woolwich when young Scoresby was given his first examination. I felt extremely sorry for him. Everybody answered the questions well, intelligently, while he, why dear me! He did not know anything, so to speak. He was a nice pleasant young man. It was painful to see him stand there and give answers that were miracles of stupidity. I knew of course that when examined again, he would fail and be thrown out. So I said to myself, "It would be a simple harmless act to help him as much as I could."

I took him aside and found he knew a little about Julius Caesar's history, but he did not know anything else. So I went to work and tested him and worked him like a slave. I made him work over and over again on a few questions about Caesar which I knew he would be asked.

If you will believe me, he came through very well on the day of the examination, he got high praise too while others who knew a thousand times more than he were sharply criticized. By some strange lucky accident, he was asked no questions but those I made him study. Such an accident does not happen more than once in a hundred years. Well, all through his studies I stood by him with the feeling a mother has for a disabled child. And he always saved himself by some miracle. I thought that what in the end would destroy him would be the mathematics examination. I decided to make his end as painless as possible, so I pushed facts into his stupid head before hours. Finally I let him go to the examination to experience what I was sure would be his dismissal from school. Well sir, try to imagine the result! I was shocked out of my mind ? he took first prize and he got the highest praise!

I felt guilty day and night. What I was doing was not right, but I only wanted to make his dismissal a little less painful for him. I never dreamed it would lead to such strange laughable results. I thought that sooner or later one thing was sure to happen. The first, real test once he was through school would ruin him. Then the Crimean War broke out. I felt that set for him that there had to be a war, peace would have given this donkey a chance to escape from ever being found out as being so stupid. Nervously I waited for the worst to happen. It did. He was appointed an officer ? a captain of all things! Who could have dreamed that they would place such a responsibility on such weak shoulders as his!

I said to myself that I was responsible to the country for this, I must go with him and protect the nation against him as far as I could. So I joined up with him and away we went to field. And there—oh dear it was terrible! Mistakes! Tearful mistakes! Why? He never did anything that was right. Nothing but mistakes! But you see. Nobody knew the secret of how stupid he really was! Everybody misunderstood his actions. They saw his stupid mistakes as words of great intelligence. They did, honestly. His smallest mistakes made a man in his right mind cry and shout and scream too. To himself of course. And what kept me in a continued fear was the fact that every mistake he made increased his glory and fame. I kept saying to myself that when at last they found out about him it will be like the sun falling out of the sky.

Emm, he continued to climb up over the dead bodies of his superiors. Then in the hardest moment of one battle down went our colonel, my heart jumped into my mouth for Scoresby was the next in line to take his place. Now we are in for it, I said. The battle grew harder, the English and their allies were stably retreating all over the field. Our regiment occupied of position that was extremely important. One mistake now would bring total disaster. And what did Scoresby do this time? He just mistook his left hand for his right hand. That was all. An order came for him to fall back and support our right. Instead, he moved forward and went over the hill to the left. We were over the hill before this insane movement could be discovered and stopped. And what did we find?--A large and unsuspected Russian army waiting. And what happened?—were we all tilt? That was exactly what would have happened in 99 cases out of 100. But no. those surprised Russians thought that no one regiment by itself would come around there at such a time.

"It must be the whole British army!" They thought. They turned tail, away they went over the hill and down into the field in wild disorder and we after them. In no time there was the greatest turnaround you ever saw. The allies turned defeat into a sweeping and shining victory!

The allied commander looked on, his head spinning with wonder, surprise and joy. He sent right off for Scoresby and put his arms around him and hugged him on the field in front of all the armies. Scoresby became famous that day as a great military leader, honoredest throughout the world. That honor will never disappear while history books last.

He is just as nice and pleasant as ever. But he still does not know enough to come in out of the ring. He is the stupidest man in the universe. Until now, nobody knew it but Scoresby and myself. He has been followed day by day, year by year by a strange luck. He has been a shining soldier in all our wars for years. He has filled his whole military life with mistakes. Every one of them brought him another honorary title. Look at his chest, flooded with British and foreign medals. Well, sir, every one of them is the record of some great stupidity or other. They are proof that the best thing that can happen to a man is to be born lucky! I say again as I did at the dinner: Scoresby is a complete fool!

You have just heard the story "Luck". It was written by Mark Twain and adapted for Special English by Harold Berman. Your narrator was Shep O'Neal. Listen again next week at the same time for another American story told in Special English on The Voice of America. This is Susan Clark.