Courtesy Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec. From the Montreal Gazette, February 19, 1885 This is my own transcription sans the list of names of those attending the reception at the Windsor hotel prior to the show. MARK TWAIN-CABLE The Two Noted American Authors in Montreal Reception at the Windsor yesterday afternoon – The entertainment at the Queen's Hall. Yesterday afternoon the Athenaeum club invited about 500 of the leading citizens of Montreal to the Windsor hotel to meet Mr. Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), the world-renowned humorist, and Mr. G. W. Cable, the celebrated American littérateur and novelist. The reception commenced at half-past four and lasted for two hours. The handsome drawing-rooms of the Windsor were thrown open to visitors, and some two hundred of our leading citizens were presented. The conversational powers of the gentlemen must have been taxed to the utmost in saying something to each of the visitors. In personal appearance Mr. Clemens and Mr. Cable differ from each other as much as in the style and manner of their writings. Mr. Clemens was dressed in a dark gray lounge coat, and looked as modest and unassuming as if his name was never heard outside of his natal town. Mr. Cable, who is not nearly as well known, was dressed in a more conventional manner than his confrère. He is shorter in stature and a luxuriant growth of well-trimmed dark beard ornaments his face. After the reception, refreshments were served, and the gathering broke up shortly after six o'clock. Amongst those invited and present were: [Here is a long list of people far too tedious for me to type out at this time. A PNG copy of the review is available on the Queen's Hall page of my web site]. IN QUEEN'S HALL Probably not since the immortal Charles Dickens delighted the English speaking people of the old and new world with readings from his own works has there been an event in which the public take such an interest as the present reading tour of the S. L. Clemens and Geo. W. Cable. The Queen's hall last night was thronged with an appreciative and expectant audience. There is only one Mark Twain in the world who can write such genuine fun. Those who saw the performance last evening may come to the conclusion that there is only one who can really be a true exponent of that fun, and that man is Mark Twain himself. Nearly as much can be said for the distinguished novelist, Mr. Cable. There are a great many writers in the world—more than those whose works will ever be read—but few writers can appear before an audience and electrify and delight it by readings from the works of their own pen. Mr. Cable can do this, and in a manner which cannot be rivalled. An entertainment in which the programme consists entirely of readings, to avoid being monotonous must be super-excellent, and the programme last evening attained this high degree of merit. The chief success of any entertainer lies in his power to make the audience enjoy themselves, and the more he succeeds in this the greater his success. Mark Twain last night, from the moment he appeared on the stage until he announced that after his last reading there would be “a short interval of twenty-four hours,” kept the audience in roars of laughter. Mr. Cable was equally entertaining, and the audience laughed with him and in turn felt sad where he rendered, with a pathos which few could impart into the reading, some of the pathetic descriptive passages from Dr. Sevier. His selections were all taken from this his latest novel. Nothing could have been better than his reading of the colloquial passages between Kate Riley, Richling and Ristofalo. His assumption of the Widow Riley's brogue and “winning ways” were perfect of their kind. But his greatest success was in the reading of “Mary's Night Ride.” The language used in the narrative is exceedingly [???] and the pathos moving. His reading of the descriptive passages was sweet and entertaining beyond compare, and in the exciting scene where the heroine (Mary) escapes the bullets whistling round her he rose, Irving-like, to the occasion and showed himself gifted with a dramatic talent of more than ordinary calibre. At the close of this reading Mr. Cable was enthusiastically applauded and recalled to bow his acknowledgements to the audience. Mark Twain read selections from “Huckleberry Finn,” also “A Trying Situation” and “The Tragic Tale of a Fishwife.” The intrinsic humor of the selections was intensified a hundredfold by the reading and mannerism of their author. He got off some of the best jokes with a solemnity of style as if there really was nothing in them, and the audience was forced to laugh again and again. His dissertation on the incongruities of the sexes of the German language was funny in the extreme. While everyone else in the hall was laughing the cause of all the fun, in a nonchalant pose with his left arm akimbo and the index finger of his right hand supporting his chin, looked as solemn as a judge. His very appearance under the circumstances was in itself most amusing. Perhaps there was not one of the audience last evening who had not read Mark Twain's works, and the general feeling was that to appreciate them thoroughly it would be necessary to read them again. The Twain-Cable performance is not only amusing but it is instructive and no one can afford to miss it. The engagement closes tonight and a change of programme is announced.