Who Is Mark Twain? Read Online Free PDF

went to Fuller and said the case is absolutely desperate. There isn’t going to be a soul at the lecture—you must paper the house—you must load up every bench in it with dead-head tickets.
    It made him sad to hear me talk so. He said “there was going to be $3,000 in it and $40,000 outside trying to get in—but your comfort is the first thing to be considered, and it shall be as you say. And I will give you the very best and brainiest dead-head audience that ever sat down under a roof in this world—both sexes, and every last one of them a school-teacher.” And straightway he began to send out market-baskets loaded with dead-head tickets. He fairly snowed the public schools under with them, north, south and west for 30 miles around New York. Then I felt better.
    On the ninth and tenth days, we began to hear from the illustrious men who had been invited.
    [A succession on the screen, here, of good portraits of the time, beginning with Grant and ending with Nye—with explanations of why they couldn’t be present. Then portraits of the time, of Fuller and me. Then of us as at present; and then or at the end Fuller must come on and say he noticed, as I went along, that some of the things I said were true.]
    The lecture was to begin at 8. I was nervous, and I went a little early. It was just as well that I did. Massed in the street were all the school teachers in America, apparently, and more coming. The streets were blocked, all traffic was at a standstill. It took me a while to get in. At 8 every seat was occupied. Even the huge stage was packed, and I never had a better time in my life. Fuller had kept his word: there were more brains there than were ever under a roof before—and without counting me.
    And also, in the box-office, in cold cash, there was $35. First I began and worked up to and told Bucking horse—man got up—
    I don’t know what that wild scheme cost Fuller. He has never mentioned the matter once. And when the newspaper notices came out in the morning he was the best satisfied man in New York. He said “You’re a made man—you’ll see.” And just there comes the strangest part of it; just there this discredited prophet spoke true. Those notices went about the country, and lyceums that didn’t know me from Adam began to shout for me to come. I responded—with modesty, but also with promptness. I accepted a hundred invitations at $100 a piece; and but for Fuller I wouldn’t have been worth fourteen.
     
     
    Well, Fuller’s final idea was to invite the Queen of England. I said that that was nonsense; he said it wasn’t nonsense. He said it was a good move; she wouldn’t come, but no matter, the fact that she was invited would be published all over the world and would at once lift this show high up in the estimation of all mankind and make it respectable. And he wanted me to write the letter. Of course I refused. How little I imagined, at that time, that some day I should really be corresponding with the Queen of England. But we never can tell what is going to happen to us in this world—not even in the next. I did write her a letter—it was about 10 or 12 years ago. I didn’t get any answer, because the mails were very irregular then; and so I didn’t keep up the correspondence; but I did have the honor of writing her one letter, anyway. The way it happened was this. About 10 or 12 years ago
    [AFTER GR ANT—THIS.]
     
    That anecdote about Gen. Grant’s remark at Chicago, is in a sort of kinship with another remark evincing memory high-placed—a remark which was made to me in Europe 3 or 4 years ago by a Personage whose name, like Grant’s, is widely known in the world.
     
     
    [PICTURE OF PRINCE OF WALES.]
     
     
    There he is—the Heir to one of the best positions that I know of. It so happened that ten or twelve years ago I was surprised and shocked to receive from England—from the Internal Revenue Office—a tax-bill of £48—an income-tax bill, levied on my English