A READING-TOUR WITH CABLE
was during his convalescence that the plan for a combined reading-tour had been made. This was early in the year, and the tour was to begin in the autumn.
Cable, meantime, having quite recovered, conceived a plan to repay Mark Twain's hospitality. It was to be an April-fool—a great complimentary joke. A few days before the first of the month he had a "private and confidential" circular letter printed, and mailed it to one hundred and fifty of Mark Twain's friends and admirers in Boston, New York, and elsewhere, asking that they send the humorist a letter to arrive April 1, requesting his autograph. It would seem that each one receiving this letter must have responded to it, for on the morning of April 1st an immense pile of letters was unloaded on Mark Twain's table. He did not know what to make of it, and Mrs. Clemens, who was party to the joke, slyly watched results. They were the most absurd requests for autographs ever written. He was fooled and mystified at first, then realizing the nature and magnitude of the joke, he entered into it fully—delighted, of course, for it was really a fine compliment. Some of the letters asked for autographs by the yard, some by the pound. Some commanded him to sit down and copy a few chapters from The Innocents Abroad. Others asked that his autograph be attached to a check. John Hay requested that he copy a hymn, a few hundred lines of Young's Night Thoughts, etc., and added:
I want my boy to form a taste for serious and elevated poetry, and it will add considerable commercial value to have it in your handwriting.
233
