No letters written between 28 November and 3 December 1873 have been found. Clemens opened his second English lecture series on Monday, 1 December, delivering his popular Sandwich Islands talk to full and enthusiastic houses. One week later, on 8 December, he introduced a lecture that was new to English audiences, “Roughing It on the Silver Frontier,” based in part on incidents recounted in Roughing It. (For reviews of both lectures see 6 Dec 73 to OLC, n. 1click to open link, and 9 Dec 73 to OLC 1st, n. 1click to open link.) Stoddard recalled:
About three o’clock of each day Mark began to get nervous and irritable, as he always did when he was going to lecture, and from that time on it was my business to keep him as mentally occupied as I could. He was self-willed and obstinate, of course, and wanted to do what he wanted to do, and I had to fit into his moods as best I could. Dear old Mark! Those were trying times for him. A little before eight we would walk over to the Concert Rooms and up the stairs into the tiny room at the back, Mark getting more and more irritable and nervous all the while, looking at his watch, anxious to plunge in and have it over. The moment eight o’clock arrived he invariably said, “It’s time now. I’ll not wait another moment,” and then, as cool and deliberate as could be, he walked on to the platform, “washing his hands in invisible soap and water,” slowly saying his first words. The moment he heard his own voice he began to feel better, and I knew he was all right. (James, 669)
Clemens was a consistent success, although there was some variation in the response of each audience:
I found that a joke which took the house by storm one evening was not sure of a like success the following night. Some jokes took immediate effect and convulsed the house. The hearty laughter was as the laughter of one man with a thousand mouths. On another occasion the same joke caught feebly in one corner of the room, ran diagonally across the hall, followed by a trail of laughter, and exploded on the last bench. By this time the front seats had awakened to a sense of the ludicrous and the applause became general. (Stoddard 1903, 67–68)
After the lectures, according to Stoddard,
Mark always felt amiable, and met the people who came to shake hands with his well-known suavity and grace, and cheerfully gave them autographs and all that kind of thing. Then we’d walk home. As soon as we arrived, he would bring out a bottle of Bourbon whiskey—he’d searched London over to find this—some Angostura bitters, sugar, lemons and the other “fixin’s,” and proceed to mix a cocktail for each of us, slowly talking to me the while. He was an adept at cocktail making—knew the art to perfection. As we drank it the constant drawl of his voice was heard, as he walked up and down the room. This was the only way he could get ready to sleep. Lecturing excited him and got him started and he would talk for hours. (James, 669)