Redpath to return to the platform that autumn, and he began at once
writing lectures. His disposal of the Buffalo paper had left him
considerably in debt, and platforming was a sure and quick method of
retrenchment. More than once in the years ahead Mark Twain would
return to travel and one-night stands to lift a burden of debt.
Brief letters to Redpath of this time have an interest and even a
humor of their own.


Letters to James Redpath, in Boston:

ELMIRA, June 27, 1871.
DEAR RED,--Wrote another lecture--a third one-today. It is the one I am
going to deliver. I think I shall call it "Reminiscences of Some
Pleasant Characters Whom I Have Met," (or should the "whom" be left out?)
It covers my whole acquaintance--kings, lunatics, idiots and all.
Suppose you give the item a start in the Boston papers. If I write fifty
lectures I shall only choose one and talk that one only.

No sir: Don't you put that scarecrow (portrait) from the Galaxy in, I
won't stand that nightmare.
Yours,
MARK.


ELMIRA, July 10, 1871.
DEAR REDPATH,--I never made a success of a lecture delivered in a church
yet. People are afraid to laugh in a church. They can't be made to do
it in any possible way.