January 18 Sunday – Sam finished the letter to Livy, writing in the morning and after breakfast adding to it at noon, when he wrote about the Chicago readings:

We’ve had an immense time here with these three big audiences in this noble Central Music Hall. But for the fearful storms, we would have turned people away from the doors. It is a beautiful place, & you should have seen that alert & radiant mass of well-dressed humanity, rising tier on tier clear to the slope of the ceiling. Last night was the greatest triumph we have ever made. I played my new bill, containing The Jumping Frog of Calaveras County (cut it down & told it in 13 minutes—quickest time on record) & Tom & Huck setting Jim free from prison—25 minutes—but it just went with a long roll of artillery—laughter all down the line…& after a thrice-repeated crash of encores, I came back & talked a ten-minute yard (Gov. Gardiner)—on the state 35 minutes, you see, & no harm done—encored again after the encore, & came back & bowed. And mind I tell the old Jumping Frog swept the place like a conflagration. Nothing in this world can beat that yarn when one is feeling good & has the right audience in front of him [MTP].

In the evening Sam and Cable gave a reading in Evanston, Illinois. From the Jan. 24 Evanston Index:

Mr. Clemens, or “Mark Twain,” was at his best, and kept the audience convulsed from the time he commenced with “King Sollermun,” to the loss of the golden arm. His quiet, drawling manner and perfectly immovable face lend an additional zest to the ludicrous things he says. He does not at any time stick to his text, but if the audience is appreciative, as this one was, he touches up the things that seem to take best. It was hard to determine which provoked the most laughter, the struggle with German grammar, “Huck Finn,” “A Trying Situation,” or “Who’s Got My Golden Arm.” In the latter, the painfully intense hush caused by the speaker’s dropping his voice almost to a whisper, was broken by his shouting “You have,” so loud as to bring the audience to their feet, and before he could reseat themselves he had bowed “good night” and left the stage. Both gentlemen were frequently recalled and gracefully responded.

Laura W. Richard wrote asking autographs from Twain and Cable [MTP].