The Ravenna Portage County Democrat of 17 February called Clemens’s lecture “a success viewed either from a humorous or financial standpoint. The audience was the largest of the season, and without being a witness of the fact it would have been impossible to believe that so much fun could have been compressed into an hour. No one need ever attempt to be funny before a Ravenna audience, unless perfectly sure that he is a funnier man than ‘Mark Twain’” (“‘Mark Twain,’” 3). And the next day the Ravenna Democratic Press reported that Mark Twain’s “quaint style, his quiet but yet sparking wit, met the hearty applause, while his eloquent description thrilled, a delighted audience” (TS in CU-MARK, courtesy of William Baker).

Clemens’s explanation of how he came to miss his 12 February lecture in Alliance has not been found and, as he indicates, may never have been published. He lectured in Alliance on 15 (not 14) February. His reference here to “tomorrow night” (a Sunday) is probably a simple error, rather than a sign that he was writing on Sunday (“after Saturday midnight,” according to MTMF , 72). He probably retired before midnight on Saturday, after completing only the first part of the next letter to Olivia Langdon.

Clemens kept his engagements in Titusville and Franklin, Pennsylvania, on 16 and 17 February, respectively. The lecture scheduled for Geneseo, New York, on 18 February was postponed until 1 March; the lecture scheduled for Auburn, New York, on 19 February was canceled.