A man with him
asked:
"Who's Mark Twain?"
"Goodness knows! I don't."
The lecturer could not ride any farther. He hunted up his patron.
"Fuller," he groaned, "there isn't a sign--a ripple of interest."
Fuller assured him that things were "working underneath," and would be
all right. But Clemens wrote home: "Everything looks shady, at least, if
not dark." And he added that, after hiring the largest house in New
York, he must play against Schuyler Colfax, Ristori, and a double troupe
of Japanese jugglers, at other places of amusement.
When the evening of the lecture approached and only a few tickets had
been sold, the lecturer was desperate.
"Fuller," he said, "there'll be nobody in 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 complimentaries!"
"Very well," said Fuller. "What we want this time is reputation, anyway
--money is secondary. I'll put you before the choicest and most
intelligent audience that was ever gathered in New York City."
Fuller immediately sent out complimentary tickets to the school-teachers
of New York and Brooklyn---a general invitation to come and hear Mark
Twain's great lecture on the Sandwich Islands.
Pages:
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184