will be a burlesque, of course, and I am going to pretend to forget my
facts, and I want you to sit there in a chair. Now and then, when I seem
to get stuck, I'll lean over and pretend to ask you some thing, and I
want you to pretend to prompt me. You don't need to laugh, or to pretend
to be assisting in the performance any more than just that." HANDBILL OF
MARK TWAIN'S "FAREWELL LECTURE":

MARK TWAIN

Will Deliver His Farewell Lecture

CARNEGIE HALL.

APRIL 19TH, 1906

FOR THE BENEFIT OF

Robert Fulton Memorial Association

MILITARY ORGANIZATION OLD GUARD IN
FULL DRESS UNIFORM WILL BE PRESENT

MUSIC BY OLD GUARD BAND

TICKETS AND BOXES ON SALE AT CARNEGIE HALL
AND WALDORF-ASTORIA

SEATS $1.50, $1.00, 50 CENTS

It was not likely that I should laugh. I had a sinking feeling in the
cardiac region which does not go with mirth. It did not for the moment
occur to me that the stage would be filled with eminent citizens and
vice-presidents, and I had a vision of myself sitting there alone in
the chair in that wide emptiness, with the chief performer directing
attention to me every other moment or so, for perhaps an hour. Let
me hurry on to say that it did not happen. I dare say he realized
my unfitness for the work, and the far greater appropriateness of
conferring the honor on General Grant, for in the end he gave him the
assignment, to my immeasurable relief.

It was a magnificent occasion. That spacious hall was hung with bunting,
the stage was banked and festooned with decoration of every sort.
General Grant, surrounded by his splendidly uniformed staff, sat in the
foreground, and behind was ranged a levee of foremost citizens of the
republic. The band played "America" as Mark Twain entered, and the great
audience rose and roared out its welcome. Some of those who knew him
best had hoped that on this occasion of his last lecture he would tell
of that first appearance in San Francisco, forty years before, when his
fortunes had hung in the balance. Perhaps he did not think of it, and no
one had had the courage to suggest it. At all events, he did a different
thing. He began by making a strong plea for the smitten city where the
flames were still raging, urging prompt help for those who had lost not
only th