ide and gratitude toward you in every
conceivable--inexpensive way. Welcome to Hartford, great soldier,
honored statesman, unselfish citizen.

Grant's grim smile showed itself more than once during the speech, and
when Clemens reached the sentence that spoke of his country rewarding
him in "every conceivable--inexpensive way" his composure broke up
completely and he "nearly laughed his entire head off," according to
later testimony, while the spectators shouted their approval.

Grant's son, Col. Fred Grant,--[Maj.-Gen'l, U. S. Army, 1906. Died
April, 1912.]--dined at the Clemens home that night, and Rev. Joseph
Twichell and Henry C. Robinson. Twichell's invitation was in the form of
a telegram. It said:

I want you to dine with us Saturday half past five and meet Col.
Fred Grant. No ceremony. Wear the same shirt you always wear.

The campaign was at its height now, and on the evening of October 26th
there was a grand Republican rally at the opera-house with addresses
by Charles Dudley Warner, Henry C. Robinson, and Mark Twain. It was
an unpleasant, drizzly evening, but the weather had no effect on their
audience. The place was jammed and packed, the aisles, the windows,
and the gallery railings full. Hundreds who came as late as the hour
announced for the opening were obliged to turn back, for the building
had been thronged long before. Mark Twain's speech that night is still
remembered in Hartford as the greatest effort of his life. It was hardly
that, except to those who were caught in the psychology of the moment,
the tumult and the shouting of patriotism, the surge and sweep of the
political tide. The roaring delight of the audience showed that to them
at least it was convincing. Howells wrote that he had read it twice, and
that he could not put it out of his mind. Whatever its general effect
was need not now be considered. Garfield was elected, and perhaps
Grant's visit to Hartford and the great mass-meeting that followed
contributed their mite to that result.

Clemens saw General Grant again that year, but not on political
business. The Educational Mission, which China had established in
Hartford--a thriving institution for eight years or more--was threatened
now by certain Chinese authorities with abolishment. Yung Wing (a Yale
graduate), the official by whom it had been projected and under whose
management it had prospered, was deeply concerned, as was the Rev.
Joseph Twichell, whose interes