Call the gross receipts $100,000 for four months and a half, and the profit from $60,000 to $75,000 (I try to make the figures large enough, and leave it to the public to reduce them.)

I did not put in Philadelphia because Pugh owns that town, and last winter when I made a little reading-trip he only paid me $300 and pretended his concert (I read fifteen minutes in the midst of a concert) cost him a vast sum, and so he couldn’t afford any more.  I could get up a better concert with a barrel of cats.

I have imagined two or three pictures and concocted the accompanying remarks to see how the thing would go.  I was charmed.

Well, you think it over, Nast, and drop me a line.  We should have some
fun. 
                    Yours truly,
                         Samuel L. Clemens.

The plan came to nothing.  Nast, like Clemens, had no special taste for platforming, and while undoubtedly there would have been large profits in the combination, the promise of the venture did not compel his acceptance.

In spite of his distaste for the platform Mark Twain was always giving readings and lectures, without charge, for some worthy Hartford cause.  He was ready to do what he could to help an entertainment along, if he could do it in his own way—­an original way, sometimes, and not always gratifying to the committee, whose plans were likely to be prearranged.

For one thing, Clemens, supersensitive in the matter of putting himself forward in his own town, often objected to any special exploitation of his name.  This always distressed the committee, who saw a large profit to their venture in the prestige of his fame.  The following characteristic letter was written in self-defense when, on one such occasion, a committee had become sufficiently peevish to abandon a worthy enterprise.

To an Entertainment Committee, in Hartford: 

Nov. 9. 
E. S. Sykes, Esq: 

Dr. Sir,—­Mr. Burton’s note puts upon me all the blame of the destruction of an enterprise which had for its object the succor of the Hartford poor.  That is to say, this enterprise has been dropped because of the “dissatisfaction with Mr. Clemens’s stipulations.”  Therefore I must be allowed to say a word in my defense.

There were two “stipulations”—­exactly two.  I made one of them; if the other was made at all, it was a joint one, from the choir and me.

My individual stipulation was, that my name should be kept out of the newspapers.  The joint one was that sufficient tickets to insure a good sum should be sold before the date of the performance should be set.  (Understand, we wanted a good sum—­I do not think any of us bothered about a good house; it was money we were after)

Now you perceive that my concern is simply with my individual stipulation.  Did that break up the enterprise?