rland, were making a great stir
in the East, arousing there a good deal more enthusiasm than in the
magazine office or the city of their publication. That these two
friends, each supreme in his own field, should have entered into their
heritage so nearly at the same moment, is one of the many seemingly
curious coincidences of literary history.

Clemens now concluded to cover his lecture circuit of two years before.
He was assured that it would be throwing away a precious opportunity not
to give his new lecture to his old friends. The result justified that
opinion. At Virginia, at Carson, and elsewhere he was received like
a returned conqueror. He might have been accorded a Roman triumph had
there been time and paraphernalia. Even the robbers had reformed, and
entire safety was guaranteed him on the Divide between Virginia and Gold
Hill. At Carson he called on Mrs. Curry, as in the old days, and among
other things told her how snow from the Lebanon Mountains is brought to
Damascus on the backs of camels.

"Sam," she said, "that's just one of your yarns, and if you tell it in
your lecture to-night I'll get right up and say so."

But he did tell it, for it was a fact; and though Mrs. Curry did not
rise to deny it she shook her finger at him in a way he knew.

He returned to San Francisco and gave one more lecture, the last he
would ever give in California. His preparatory advertising for that
occasion was wholly unique, characteristic of him to the last degree. It
assumed the form of a handbill of protest, supposed to have been issued
by the foremost citizens of San Francisco, urging him to return to the
States without inflicting himself further upon them. As signatures he
made free with the names of prominent individuals, followed by those of
organizations, institutions, "Various Benevolent Societies, Citizens on
Foot and Horseback, and fifteen hundred in the Steerage."

Following this (on the same bill) was his reply, "To the fifteen hundred
and others," in which he insisted on another hearing:

I will torment the people if I want to.... It only costs the people
$1 apiece, and if they can't stand it what do they stay here for?...
My last lecture was not as fine as I thought it was, but I have
submitted this discourse to several able critics, and they have
pronounced it good. Now, therefore, why should I withhold it?

He promised positively to sail on the 6th of July if they would let
him talk j