mes for the sale of seats. Once he came rushing to Fuller,
saying:

"Send a lot of tickets down to the Chickering Piano Company. I have
promised to put on my programme, 'The piano used at this entertainment
is manufactured by Chickering."'

"But you don't want a piano, Mark," said Fuller, "do you?"

"No, of course not; but they will distribute the tickets for the sake of
the advertisement, whether we have the piano or not."

Fuller got out a lot of handbills and hung bunches of them in the
stages, omnibuses, and horse-cars. Clemens at first haunted these
vehicles to see if anybody noticed the bills. The little dangling
bunches seemed untouched. Finally two men came in; one of them pulled
off a bill and glanced at it. His friend asked:

"Who's Mark Twain?"

"God knows; I don't!"

The lecturer could not ride any more. He was desperate.

"Fuller," he groaned, "there isn't a sign--a ripple of interest."

Fuller assured him that everything was working all right "working
underneath," Fuller said--but the lecturer was hopeless. He reported his
impressions to the folks at home:

Everything looks shady, at least, if not dark; I have a good agent;
but now, after we have hired the Cooper Institute, and gone to an
expense in one way or another of $500, it comes out that I have got
to play against Speaker Colfax at Irving Hall, Ristori, and also the
double troop of Japanese jugglers, the latter opening at the great
Academy of Music--and with all this against me I have taken the
largest house in New York and cannot back water.

He might have added that there were other rival entertainments: "The
Flying Scud" was at Wallack's, the "Black Crook" was at Niblo's,
John Brougham at the Olympic; and there were at least a dozen lesser
attractions. New York was not the inexhaustible city in those days;
these things could gather in the public to the last man. When the day
drew near, and only a few tickets had been sold, Clemens was desperate.

"Fuller," he said, "there'll be nobody in the Cooper Union that night
but you and me. I am on the verge of suicide. I would commit suicide if
I had the pluck and the outfit. You must paper the house, Fuller. You
must send out a flood of complementaries."

"Very well," said Fuller; "what we want this time is reputation
anyway--money is secondary. I'll put you before the choicest, most
intelligent audience that ever was gathered in New York City. I will
bring in