March 6 Friday – Sam returned alone to Hartford, perhaps after luncheon at the Aldrich home. Of the lecture, The Boston Globe:

Said Mr. Clemens, in his usual confidential style: “It is customary on these occasions to have a prominent citizen to introduce the speaker. I like this custom, and so I got Thomas Bailey Aldrich to promise to do this. But, at the last minute, he tells me that he thinks he would better not attempt it, and I know you’ll excuse him; I will. He might not be complimentary; he’s known me a good while.”

The Boston Herald:

The speaker was in excellent humor last evening, as also were his hearers, who came to laugh and be merry, and so they were from the opening to the closing syllable of the discourse. The lecture itself was an extravaganza, or an exceedingly humorous narration of what the speaker did or did not experience in the three years’ sojourn in Nevada…it was the style of the delivery which produced the climax [MTL 6: 60n3].