was a surprise.  He played on his audience as Liszt did on a piano most easily when most effectively.  Who can ever forget his attempt to stop his Italian pianist—­“a count in his own country, but not much account in this”—­who went on playing loudly while he was trying to tell us an “affecting incident” that occurred near a small clump of trees shown on his panorama of the Far West.  The music stormed on-we could see only lips and arms pathetically moving till the piano suddenly ceased, and we heard-it was all we heard “and, she fainted in Reginald’s arms.”  His tricks have been at tempted in many theaters, but Artemus Ward was inimitable.  And all the time the man was dying. (Moneure D. Conway, Autobiography.)]—­who had quickly become a favorite in London, had prepared the public for American platform humor, while the daily doings of this new American product, as reported by the press, had aroused interest, or curiosity, to a high pitch.  On no occasion in his own country had he won such a complete triumph.  The papers for a week devoted columns of space to appreciation and editorial comment.  The Daily News of October 17th published a column-and-a-half editorial on American humor, with Mark Twain’s public appearance as the general text.  The Times referred to the continued popularity of the lectures: 

They can’t be said to have more than whetted the public appetite, if we are to take the fact which has been imparted to us, that the holding capacity of the Hanover Square Rooms has been inadequate to the demand made upon it every night by Twain’s lecturing, as a criterion.  The last lecture of this too brief course was delivered yesterday before an audience which crammed to discomfort every part of the principal apartment of the Hanover Square Rooms....

At the close of yesterday’s lecture Mark Twain was so loudly applauded that he returned to the stage, and, as soon as the audience gave him a chance of being heard, he said, with much apparent emotion: 

“Ladies and Gentlemen,—­I won’t keep you one single moment in this suffocating atmosphere.  I simply wish to say that this is the last lecture I shall have the honor to deliver in London until I return from America, four weeks from now.  I only wish to say (here Mr. Clemens faltered as if too much affected to proceed) I am very grateful.  I do not wish to appear pathetic, but it is something magnificent for a stranger to come to the metropolis of the world and be received so handsomely as I have been.  I simply thank you.”

The Saturday Review devoted a page, and Once a Week, under the head of “Cracking jokes,” gave three pages, to praise of the literary and lecture methods of the new American humorist.  With the promise of speedy return, he left London, gave the lecture once in Liverpool, and with his party (October 21st) set sail for home.

In mid-Atlantic he remembered Dr. Brown, and wrote him: