Lebanon Mountains is brought to
Damascus on the backs of camels.

"Sam," she said, "that's just one of your yarns, and if you tell it in
your lecture to-night I'll get right up and say so."

But he did tell it, for it was a fact; and though Mrs. Curry did not rise
to deny it she shook her finger at him in a way he knew.

He returned to San Francisco and gave one more lecture, the last he would
ever give in California. His preparatory advertising for that occasion
was wholly unique, characteristic of him to the last degree. It assumed
the form of a handbill of protest, supposed to have been issued by the
foremost citizens of San Francisco, urging him to return to the States
without inflicting himself further upon them. As signatures he made free
with the names of prominent individuals, followed by those of
organizations, institutions, "Various Benevolent Societies, Citizens on
Foot and Horseback, and fifteen hundred in the Steerage."

Following this (on the same bill) was his reply, "To the fifteen hundred
and others," in which he insisted on another hearing:

I will torment the people if I want to.... It only costs the people
$1 apiece, and if they can't stand it what do they stay here for?...
My last lecture was not as fine as I thought it was, but I have
submitted this discourse to several able critics, and they have
pronounced it good. Now, therefore, why should I withhold it?

He promised positively to sail on the 6th of July if they would let him
talk just this once. Continuing, the handbill presented a second
protest, signed by the various clubs and business firms; also others
bearing variously the signatures of the newspapers, and the clergy,
ending with the brief word:

You had better go. Yours, CHIEF OF POLICE.

All of which drollery concluded with his announcement of place and date
of his lecture, with still further gaiety at the end. Nothing short of a
seismic cataclysm--an earthquake, in fact--could deter a San Francisco
audience after that. Mark Twain's farewell address, given at the
Mercantile Library July 2 (1868), doubtless remains today the leading
literary event in San Francisco's history.--[Copy of the lecture
announcement, complete, will be found in Appendix H, at the end of last
volume.]

He sailed July 6th by the Pacific mail steamer Montana to Acapulco,
caught the Henry Chauncey at Aspinwall, reached New York on the 28th, and
a day or two later had delivered hi