Edward P. Hingston, a well-known theatrical manager, had been Artemus Ward’s agent and good friend. Clemens met him in late 1863, when he brought Ward to lecture in Virginia City, and in early 1867 tried to hire him as his own lecture agent. Clemens was no doubt familiar with Hingston’s introduction to John Camden Hotten’s pirated edition of The Innocents Abroad (1870), which included a brief (and somewhat inaccurate) biographical sketch of the author, as well as many compliments on his talent and personal appeal. And in the winter of 1871 Clemens had relied on Hingston’s The Genial Showman: Being Reminiscences of the Life of Artemus Ward (1870) for some of the information in his “Artemus Ward, Humorist” lecture ( L1 , 269 n. 5; L2 , 8–9; Hingston 1870; ET&S1 , 554; L4 , 480 n. 5).

Hingston’s friends, Lee presumably among them, were organizing a benefit for him, to be held on 15 and 16 December at the Opera Comique in London. Hingston had leased and managed this theater since October 1872, and was now about to resign. It is likely that Lee had asked Clemens to deliver a brief anecdote as part of the festivities, at which dozens of dancers, actors, and musicians had agreed to perform (“Opera Comique.—Mr. Hingston’s Benefit,” London Times, 15 Dec 73, 8; Boase, 1:1482–83).