I have been received in a sort of tremendous way to-night by the brains of London, assembled at the annual dinner of the sheriffs of London; mine being (between you and me) a name which was received with a thundering outburst of spontaneous applause when the long list of guests was called.

I might have perished on the spot but for the friendly support and assistance of my excellent friend, Sir John Bennett.

This letter does not tell all of the incident or the real reason why he might have perished on the spot.  During the long roll-call of guests he had lost interest a little, and was conversing in whispers with his “excellent friend,” Sir John Bennett, stopping to applaud now and then when the applause of the others indicated that some distinguished name had been pronounced.  All at once the applause broke out with great vehemence.  This must be some very distinguished person indeed.  He joined in it with great enthusiasm.  When it was over he whispered to Sir John: 

“Whose name was that we were just applauding?”

“Mark Twain’s.”

Whereupon the support was needed.

Poor little pirate Hotten did not have a happy time during this visit.  He had reveled in the prospect at first, for he anticipated a large increase to be derived from his purloined property; but suddenly, one morning, he was aghast to find in the Spectator a signed letter from Mark Twain, in which he was repudiated, referred to as “John Camden Hottentot,” an unsavory person generally.  Hotten also sent a letter to the Spectator, in which he attempted to justify himself, but it was a feeble performance.  Clemens prepared two other communications, each worse than the other and both more destructive than the first one.  But these were only to relieve his mind.  He did not print them.  In one of them he pursued the fancy of John Camden Hottentot, whom he offers as a specimen to the Zoological Gardens.

It is not a bird.  It is not a man.  It is not a fish.  It does not seem to be in all respects a reptile.  It has the body and features of a man, but scarcely any of the instincts that belong to such a structure....  I am sure that this singular little creature is the missing link between the man and the hyena.

Hotten had preyed upon explorer Stanley and libeled him in a so-called. biography to a degree that had really aroused some feeling against Stanley in England.  Only for the moment—­the Queen invited Stanley to luncheon, and newspaper criticism ceased.  Hotten was in general disrepute, therefore, so it was not worth while throwing a second brick at him.

In fact, now that Clemens had expended his venom, on paper, Hotten seemed to him rather an amusing figure than otherwise.  An incident grew out of it all, however, that was not amusing.  E. P. Hingston, whom the reader may remember as having been with Artemus Ward in Virginia City, and one of that happy group that wined and dined the year away, had been engaged by Hotten to write the introductory to his edition of The Innocents Abroad.  It was a well-written, highly complimentary appreciation.  Hingston did not dream that he was committing an offense, nor did Clemens himself regard it as such in the beginning.