acting Governor of
Utah had known Mark Twain on the Comstock, and prophesied favorably of
his future career. Clemens had hunted up Fuller on landing in New York
in January, and Fuller had encouraged the lecture then; but Clemens was
doubtful.

"I have no reputation with the general public here," he said. "We
couldn't get a baker's dozen to hear me."

But Fuller was a sanguine person, with an energy and enthusiasm that
were infectious. He insisted that the idea was sound. It would solidify
Mark Twain's reputation on the Atlantic coast, he declared, insisting
that the largest house in New York, Cooper Union, should be taken.
Clemens had partially consented, and Fuller had arranged with all the
Pacific slope people who had come East, headed by ex-Governor James
W. Nye (by this time Senator at Washington), to sign a call for the
"Inimitable Mark Twain" to appear before a New York audience. Fuller
made Nye agree to be there and introduce the lecturer, and he was
burningly busy and happy in the prospect.

But Mark Twain was not happy. He looked at that spacious hall and
imagined the little crowd of faithful Californian stragglers that might
gather in to hear him, and the ridicule of the papers next day. He
begged Fuller to take a smaller hall, the smallest he could get. But
only the biggest hall in New York would satisfy Fuller. He would have
taken a larger one if he could have found it. The lecture was
announced for May 6th. Its subject was "Kanakadom, or the Sandwich
Islands"--tickets fifty cents. Fuller timed it to follow a few days
after Webb's book should appear, so that one event might help the other.

Mark Twain's first book, 'The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveyas
County, and Other Sketches', was scheduled for May 1st, and did,
in fact, appear on that date; but to the author it was no longer an
important event. Jim Smiley's frog as standard-bearer of his
literary procession was not an interesting object, so far as he was
concerned--not with that vast, empty hall in the background and the
insane undertaking of trying to fill it. The San Francisco venture had
been as nothing compared with this. Fuller was working night and day
with abounding joy, while the subject of his labor felt as if he were
on the brink of a fearful precipice, preparing to try a pair of wings
without first learning to fly. At one instant he was cold with fright,
the next glowing with an infection of Fuller's faith. He devised a
hundred sche