They were welcomed upon their arrival in Montreal on February 18 with a reception hosted by the Athenaeum Club at the Windsor Hotel that lasted until 6:00 p.m. and, Cable reported, “was the most elaborate affair I have ever had part it. I don't think I could have shaken less than two hundred and fifty hands.” He and Sam read that evening and the next before capacity audiences at the Queen’s Hall, and the Gazette reviewed their performance the first night, noting that “only one Mark Twain in the world...

February 18 Wednesday – The official U.S. publication date for Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. [Hirst, “A Note on the Text” Oxford edition, 1996]. Note: other dates are sometimes given, for example, Budd in MT “Collected” gives Feb. 16 [978]. In the first month the book sold 42,000 copies [Willis 161]. By the year 2000, the book had sold perhaps twenty million copies and approximately 60 foreign editions [162].

February 19 Thursday – Sam’s P.S. to his Feb. 18 to Livy, simply added that he’d “talked here in Montreal last night.” Before the reading Sam wrote another letter to Livy, enclosing the itinerary for the tour for February.