the school-instructors--the finest body of men and women in the
world."

Fuller immediately sent out a deluge of complimentary tickets, inviting
the school-teachers of New York and Brooklyn, and all the adjacent
country, to come free and hear Mark Twain's great lecture on Kanakadom.
This was within forty-eight hours of the time he was to appear.

Senator Nye was to have joined Clemens and Fuller at the Westminster,
where Clemens was stopping, and they waited for him there with a
carriage, fuming and swearing, until it was evident that he was not
coming. At last Clemens said:

"Fuller, you've got to introduce me."

"No," suggested Fuller; "I've got a better scheme than that. You get
up and begin by bemeaning Nye for not being there. That will be better
anyway."

Clemens said:

"Well, Fuller, I can do that. I feel that way. I'll try to think up
something fresh and happy to say about that horse-thief."

They drove to Cooper Union with trepidation. Suppose, after all, the
school-teachers had declined to come? They went half an hour before the
lecture was to begin. Forty years later Mark Twain said:

"I couldn't keep away. I wanted to see that vast Mammoth cave and
die. But when we got near the building I saw that all the streets were
blocked with people, and that traffic had stopped. I couldn't believe
that these people were trying to get into Cooper Institute; but
they were, and when I got to the stage at last the house was jammed
full-packed; there wasn't room enough left for a child.

"I was happy and I was excited beyond expression. I poured the Sandwich
Islands out on those people, and they laughed and shouted to my entire
content. For an hour and fifteen minutes I was in paradise."

And Fuller to-day, alive and young, when so many others of that ancient
time and event have vanished, has added:

"When Mark appeared the Californians gave a regular yell of welcome.
When that was over he walked to the edge of the platform, looked
carefully down in the pit, round the edges as if he were hunting for
something. Then he said: 'There was to have been a piano here, and a
senator to introduce me. I don't seem to discover them anywhere. The
piano was a good one, but we will have to get along with such music as
I can make with your help. As for the senator--Then Mark let himself go
and did as he promised about Senator Nye. He said things that made men
from the Pacific coast, who had known Nye, scream with delight. Aft