Page:Boys Life of Mark Twain.djvu/191

 When the evening of the lecture approached and only a few tickets had been sold, the lecturer was desperate. "Fuller," he said, "there'll be nobody in Cooper Union that night but you and me. I am on the verge of suicide. I would commit suicide if I had the pluck and the outfit. You must paper the house, Fuller. You must send out a flood of complimentaries!" "Very well," said Fuller. "What we want this time is reputation, anyway—money is secondary. I'll put you before the choicest and most intelligent audience that was ever gathered in New York City." Fuller immediately sent out complimentary tickets to the school-teachers of New York and Brooklyn—a general invitation to come and hear Mark Twain's great lecture on the Sandwich Islands. There was nothing to do after that but wait results. Mark Twain had lost faith—he did not believe anybody in New York would come to hear him even on a free ticket. When the night arrived, he drove with Fuller to the Cooper Union half an hour before the lecture was to begin. Forty years later he said: "I couldn't keep away. I wanted to see that vast Mammoth Cave, and die. But when we got near the building, I saw all the streets were blocked with people and that traffic had stopped. I couldn't believe that these people were trying to get to the Cooper Institute—but they were; and when I got to the stage, at last, the house was jammed full—packed; there wasn't room enough left for a child. "I was happy and I was excited beyond