“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “this is the celebrated Mark Twain from the celebrated city of San Francisco, with his celebrated lecture about the celebrated Sandwich Islands.”
That was as far as he could go; but it was far enough. Mark Twain never had a better introduction. The audience was in a shouting humor from the start.
Clemens himself used to tell of an introduction at another camp, where his sponsor said:
“Ladies and gentlemen, I know only two things about this man: the first is that he's never been in jail, and the second is I don't know why.”
But this is probably apocryphal; there is too much “Mark Twain” in it.
When he reached Virginia, Goodman said to him:
“Sam, you do not need anybody to introduce you. There's a piano on the stage in the theater. Have it brought out in sight, and when the curtain rises you be seated at the piano, playing and singing that song of yours, 'I Had an Old Horse Whose Name Was Methusalem,' and don't seem to notice that the curtain is up at first; then be surprised when you suddenly find out that it is up, and begin talking, without any further preliminaries.”
This proved good advice, and the lecture, thus opened, started off with general hilarity and applause.