When Mr. Stanley arrived in America, November 27, 1886, I had rented Chickering Hall, New York, for the first lecture of the tour. I secured Henry Ward Beecher to present Mr. Stanley, who had been interviewed fully by the reporters on his arrival. There were columns about him in all the newspapers in New York and adjoining cities. The evening came, but tickets had gone slowly. Mr. Beecher introduced Mr. Stanley in a brief description of his remarkable career, paying a handsome tribute to his work for usefulness to mankind, and then followed the lecture entitled “Through the Dark Continent.” It was descriptive of his many adventures in Central Africa, and proved to be thrilling and interesting in the extreme. Mr. Beecher had prophesied correctly. At the third lecture, given in New Haven, it became evident that Mr. Stanley would be a success. Mr. Beecher had been right. The next lecture was at Hartford. I could not get a hall or opera house, so I rented Unity Church. Here in Hartford Mr. Stanley was the guest of his friend S. L. Clemens (“Mark Twain”), who presided and introduced the explorer in a characteristic address of welcome to his city and his fireside. After the lecture, returning to Mr. Clemens’s home, I invited “Mark” to go to Boston with us on the following day and introduce Stanley, where I was sure of a great crowd. “Mark” said the only objection to accepting such an invitation was the “taking a feller so unawares, with no possible time to prepare a suitable, impromptu, extemporaneous speech for so important an occasion.” Mr. Stanley seemed pleased with the suggestion, and as the two men were great friends, the arrangement was made. As “Mark,” Stanley, and I spent the time together after the Hartford lecture, each apparently unmindful of the coming event of the evening, the following introductory speech by Mark on that occasion will give an idea of his resources in an emergency. The humorist and the explorer walked on to the platform simultaneously--a combination such as a Boston audience has rarely met. “Mark” stepped to the front and introduced his friend as follows: