August 2 Friday – J.B. Pond’s diary recorded the next trip to, Anaconda, Mont.:
To-day “Mark” and I went from Butte to Anaconda without the ladies [about 30 miles]. We left the hotel at 4:30 by trolley car in order to have plenty of time to reach the train, but we had gone only three blocks when the power gave out and we could not move. It was twelve minutes to five and there was no carriage in sight. We tried to get a grocery wagon, but the mean owner refused to take us a quarter of a mile to the depot for less than ten dollars. I told him to go to — — I saw another grocery wagon near by and told its owner I would pay any price to reach that train. “Mark” and I mounted the seat with him. He laid the lash on his pair of bronchos, and I think quicker time was never made to that depot. We reached the train just as the conductor shouted “All aboard!” and had signalled the engineer. The train was moving as we jumped on. The driver charged me a dollar, but I handed him two.
At Anaconda we found a very fine hotel and several friends very anxiously waiting to meet “Mark.” Elaborate arrangements had been made to lunch him and give him a lively day among his old mountain friends, as he had been expected by the morning train. Fortunately he missed this demonstration and was in good condition for the evening. He was introduced by the mayor of the city in a witty address of welcome. Here was our first small audience, where the local manager came out a trifle the loser.
A little incident connected with our experience here shows “Mark Twain’s” generosity. The local manager was a man who had known “Mark” in the sixties, and was very anxious to secure him for a lecture in Anaconda. He, therefore, contracted to pay the price asked. Anaconda is a small city, whose chief industry is a large smelting furnace. There were not enough people interested in high-class entertainments to make up a paying audience, and the manager was short about sixty dollars. I took what he had, and all he had, giving him a receipt in full. As “Mark” and I were not equal partners, of course the larger share of the loss fell to him. I explained the circumstances when we had our next settlement at the end of the week, hoping for his approval.
“And you took the last cent that poor fellow had! Send him a hundred dollars, and if you can’t afford to stand your share, charge it all to me. I’m not going around robbing poor men who are disappointed in their calculations as to my commercial value. I’m poor, and working to pay debts that I never contracted; but I don’t want to get money in that way.”
I sent the money, and was glad of the privilege of standing my share. The letter of acknowledgment from that man brought out the following expression from “Mark”: “I wish that every hundred dollars I ever invested had produced the same amount of happiness!” [Eccentricities of Genius 210-12].
The Anaconda Standard of Aug. 3 reported on the Aug. 2 lecture:
FUNNY MARK.
He Pleases a Large Audience in Evans’ Opera House.
Samuel L. Clemens, known to the world as Mark Twain, stood before an audience composed of some of the best people of Anaconda, in Evans’ opera house last evening. The entertainment was characteristic, it was as original in style as are the writings of the man. It was not a lecture, not exactly readings, the author simply ascended the platform and began to talk as though he were in a parlor, and in the course of a one-sided conversation he told six or seven stories, one after the other, until an hour and a half went by and no one had noticed the time in its flight.
Mark Twain in a dress suit and an immaculate expanse of white shirt front has none of the slouchy appearance that his latest pictures give to him, on the contrary, he is spruce and trim. He has a shaggy bunch of iron-gray hair about his head, and his eyes are set deep under a broad forehead. He speaks with a twang and a drawl that is in keeping with his humor and would be amusing if he were speaking solemnly, but when it is used in telling funny stories it is more than amusing, it produces spontaneous laughter in every audience he has ever tried it on. Anaconda people were no exception, they enjoyed the programme and will long remember the night they saw and heard Mark Twain.
Fatout write of an encounter with an interviewer in Anaconda:
“He disliked interviews, yet he seemed to enjoy talking to reporters, often subsiding into the nearest easy chair as he did so, and he never rebuffed them. Neatly he confounded one inexperienced journalist of Anaconda, who confronted him while he was waiting for a train. Without giving the reporter a chance to open up, Mark Twain began asking questions about Montana and so leading this novice on that by train time the young man discovered that he had been doing all the talking, having got from Mark Twain nothing but questions, a farewell handshake, and a cigar” [Lecture Circuit 248].
H.H. Rogers wrote to Livy concerning the contract for Sam’s Uniform Edition with Harper & Brothers Rogers wanted to make sure that Sam and Livy’s understanding of a clause was the same as his, and asked for a line from her about a slight change suggested by Bainbridge Colby. Livy was to receive a fifteen percent royalty from the retail cover price of the works up to 5,000 copies sold and 20 percent over and above 5,000 sold. Prices were to be based on cloth binding editions. Harper would give a semi-annual statement and pay in cash four months after each statement. For copies sold through subscription canvassers, however, the royalties were to be paid on the actual sale price received for each copy. Harper further agreed to begin work on the series within a month after the signing of the contract [MTHHR 178-9]. Note: Livy answered this letter on Aug. 17 in Vancouver.