lively combination.

Once to the writer Howells said: "Clemens took one scene and I another.
We had loads of fun about it. We cracked our sides laughing over it
as we went along. We thought it mighty good, and I think to this day it
was mighty good."

But actors and managers did not agree with them. Raymond, who had played
the original Sellers, declared that in this play the Colonel had not
become merely a visionary, but a lunatic. The play was offered
elsewhere, and finally Mark Twain produced it at his own expense. But
perhaps the public agreed with Raymond, for the venture did not pay.

It was about a year after this (the winter of 1884-5) that Mark Twain
went back to the lecture platform--or rather, he joined with George W.
Cable in a reading-tour. Cable had been giving readings on his own
account from his wonderful Creole stories, and had visited Mark Twain in
Hartford. While there he had been taken down with the mumps, and it was
during his convalescence that the plan for a combined reading-tour had
been made. This was early in the year, and the tour was to begin in the
autumn.

Cable, meantime, having quite recovered, conceived a plan to repay Mark
Twain's hospitality. It was to be an April-fool--a great complimentary
joke. A few days before the first of the month he had a "private and
confidential" circular letter printed, and mailed it to one hundred and
fifty of Mark Twain's friends and admirers in Boston, New York, and
elsewhere, asking that they send the humorist a letter to arrive April 1,
requesting his autograph. It would seem that each one receiving this
letter must have responded to it, for on the morning of April 1st an
immense pile of letters was unloaded on Mark Twain's table. He did not
know what to make of it, and Mrs. Clemens, who was party to the joke,
slyly watched results. They were the most absurd requests for autographs
ever written. He was fooled and mystified at first, then realizing the
nature and magnitude of the joke, he entered into it fully-delighted, of
course, for it was really a fine compliment. Some of the letters asked
for autographs by the yard, some by the pound. Some commanded him to sit
down and copy a few chapters from "The Innocents Abroad." Others asked
that his autograph be attached to a check. John Hay requested that he
copy a hymn, a few hundred lines of Young's "Night Thoughts," etc., and
added:

"I want my boy to form a taste for serious and elevated poetry, an