who had once refused the Frog story by omitting it from Artemus Ward’s book.  It seems curious that Canton should make a second mistake and refuse it again, but publishers were wary in those days, and even the newspaper success of the Frog story did not tempt him to venture it as the title tale of a book.  Webb finally declared he would publish the book himself, and Clemens, after a few weeks of New York, joined his mother and family in St. Louis and gave himself up to a considerable period of visiting, lecturing meantime in both Hannibal and Keokuk.

Fate had great matters in preparation for him.  The Quaker City Mediterranean excursion, the first great ocean picnic, was announced that spring, and Mark Twain realized that it offered a possible opportunity for him to see something of the world.  He wrote at once to the proprietors of the Alta-California and proposed that they send him as their correspondent.  To his delight his proposition was accepted, the Alta agreeing to the twelve hundred dollars passage money, and twenty dollars each for letters.

The Quaker City was not to sail until the 8th of June, but the Alta wished some preliminary letters from New York.  Furthermore, Webb had the Frog book in press, and would issue it May 1st.  Clemens, therefore, returned to New York in April, and now once more being urged by the Californians to lecture, he did not refuse.  Frank Fuller, formerly Governor of Utah, took the matter in hand and engaged Cooper Union for the venture.  He timed it for May 6th, which would be a few days after the appearance of Webb’s book.  Clemens was even more frightened at the prospect of this lecture than he had been in San Francisco, and with more reason, for in New York his friends were not many, and competition for public favor was very great.  There are two letters written May 1st, one to his people, and one to Bret Harte, in San Francisco; that give us the situation.