October 20 Saturday – Sam and McCarthy traveled by stage through gold boomtowns, Timbuctoo, Smartsville, and Rough and Ready (in modern days nearly empty). Sam gave the lecture “Sandwich Islands” in Hamilton Hall, Grass Valley, California. The Grass Valley Daily Union reported:
Crowds are flocking into Hamilton Hall, as we write, to hear Mark Twain’s lecture….But a moment ago we saw the lecturer preparing himself for a clear voice with a copious dose of gin and gam, after which he started for the Hall with the irregular movement of a stern-wheel boat in a heavy wind… [Sanborn 299].
The Daily Hawaiian Herald ran the following on Nov. 16 about the Grass Valley lecture:
CHARACTERISTIC. – The following is the conclusion of Mark Twain’s advertisement for his lecture delivered lately in Grass Valley:
“After the lecture is over the lecturer will perform the following wonderful feats on SLEIGHT OF HAND. if desired to do so: “At a given signal, he will go out with any gentleman and take a drink. If desired, he will repeat this unique and interesting feat—repeat it until the audience are satisfied that there is no deception about it. “At a moment’s warning he will depart out of town and leave his hotel bill unsettled. He has performed this ludicrous trick many hundreds of times in San Francisco and elsewhere, and it has always elicited the most enthusiastic comments. “At any hour of the night, after ten, the lecturer will go through any house in the city, no matter how dark it may be, and take an inventory of its contents, and not miss as many of the articles as the owner will in the morning. “The lecturer declines to specify any more of his miraculous feats at present, for fear of getting the police too much interested in his circus” [Schmidt]. Sam and McCarthy are said to have stayed in the now historic Holbrooke Hotel, Grass Valley (still in operation as of 2013).