proposed that Clemens give a lecture in order to establish his reputation
on the Atlantic coast. Clemens demurred, but Fuller insisted, and
engaged Cooper Union for the occasion. Not many tickets were sold.
Fuller, however, always ready for an emergency, sent out a flood of
complimentaries to the school-teachers of New York and adjacent
territory, and the house was crammed. It turned out to be a notable
event. Mark Twain was at his best that night; the audience laughed
until, as some of them declared when the lecture was over, they were too
weak to leave their seats. His success as a lecturer was assured.

The Quaker City was the steamer selected for the great oriental tour.
It sailed as advertised, June 8, 1867, and was absent five months, during
which Mark Twain contributed regularly to the 'Alta-California', and
wrote several letters for the New York Tribune. They were read and
copied everywhere. They preached a new gospel in travel literature
--a gospel of seeing with an overflowing honesty; a gospel of sincerity
in according praise to whatever he considered genuine, and ridicule to
the things believed to be shams. It was a gospel that Mark Twain
continued to preach during his whole career. It became, in fact, his
chief literary message to the world, a world ready for that message.

He returned to find himself famous. Publishers were ready with plans for
collecting the letters in book form. The American Publishing Company,
of Hartford, proposed a volume, elaborately illustrated, to be sold by
subscription. He agreed with them as to terms, and went to Washington'
to prepare copy. But he could not work quietly there, and presently was
back in San Francisco, putting his book together, lecturing occasionally,
always to crowded houses. He returned in August, 1868, with the
manuscript of the Innocents Abroad, and that winter, while his book was
being manufactured, lectured throughout the East and Middle West, making