May 15 Friday – In Peitermaritzburg, S. Africa, Sam was awakened at 7 a.m. He bathed and had coffee and shaved, then rested in bed rehearsing for the night’s lecture. Before lunch he wrote to Livy:
Livy darling, we had a brief & pleasant journey in a reserved carriage provided by Mr. Hunter. He & Mr. Milligan were at the station to see us off; both are fine men — fine & good hearted and sound & genuine. … Luncheon is at 1 o’clock; after it we will go to Government House & sign our names. I have devised a new ending for Huck & the Smallpox, & will try it to-night.
It is pretty lonesome without you, dear heart: I miss you all the time. By & by we’ll be together again. Good-bye; I love you both. Saml [MTP; not in LLMT].
In the afternoon, Sam signed his name at the Government House, where he would luncheon the following day (May 16).
In the evening Sam gave his modified “At Home” lecture at the Theatre Royal on Chapel Street. It seems that every town in S. Africa had a “Theatre Royal.” Governor Sir Walter Healy-Hutchinson was in the full-house. Sam’s lecture, including the new ending to “Huck and the Smallpox” ran 84 minutes. Reviews published: May 16: Natal Witness; May 22 The Critic [Philippon 15].
Sam attended a reception and then gave a dinner speech to a combined meeting of the Victoria and Savage Clubs. Like many dinner talks, this one seems to have been spontaneous and brief. No text is available for his “good long paragraph,” beyond his May 16 letter to Livy, below [15; Fatout, MT Speaking 664].
The two clubs joined teams last night [May 15] & I was the supper-guest of the combination. We sat down to table a very little after 10 — after a handshaking reception. The table & one extra full — 30 or more — just right. The Chairman was an English barrister & a capable man. He delivered a memorized speech of considerable length & made them shout all the way through. Then I got up & said with a seriousness amounting to solemnity: “I am the unwilling slave of an exacting vocation, and” That is all I remember of it; but it was a good long paragraph choicely worded — & ended: “and it would appear that through the inscrutable providence of God I am come to Maritzburg to be taught my trade by this hoary expert.” Then I took his speech to pieces in detail & we had a roaring time. After a recitation of a spirited sort by the President of the other Club I privately asked leave to go [MTP; not in LLMT].
Note: Parsons identifies the Chairman who gave the long speech as “an English barrister,” G. Bulkley:
As an older party, locally knowing, he [Bulkley] advised the American [Twain] what to put in his Wanderjahr about Maritzburg, its advantages plus any future “adjuncts of civilisation.” After the toast was musically honored, Twain eagerly responded to this “splendid ‘draw’.” Having made a journey of 24,000 miles to put together a tome, he now discovers that , “Had I only come to Maritzburg in the first instance, and consulted the gentleman who has…advised me, I would have found all I was in search of ready to my hand! My life, in fact, has been a failure up to this moment! And with regard to my kind adviser’s reference to our respective ages, and to his claim of seniority, I can only look at him, and in the fullness of my heart exclaim, ‘How glorious is youth!’” [“Clubman in S.A.” 241]. Note: Parsons judges at least part of these remarks were included in Sam’s “good long paragraph choicely worded.”
Sam’s May 16 to Livy reported he was in bed before midnight