The Philadelphia Inquirer

Major J.B. Pond has brought before the public for three readings in this city the names Mark Twain and George W. Cable, and they have proved a powerful attraction among the most cultivated and intelligent people of this city. The first reading was given last night at Association Hall, where a very select audience assembled, filling three circles of the pretty auditorium.

It is "too late a week" to criticize work so artistic and so well known. Suffice it to say that Mr. Cable gave "Narcisse and John and Mary Richling," from "Dr. Sevier," the courting scene in the same book in which Kate Riley so amusingly chaffs Ristofalo, "Narcisse in Mourning for Lady Byron," and the great humorist recited, while tears ran down his listeners' cheeks, some scenes from the advance sheets of the "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and the "Tragic Tale of the Fishwife," described "A Trying Situation," one of his funniest efforts, in which a gentleman who does not recognize a lady, who does recognize him, is utterly mystified and overwhelmingly embarrassed by her questioning him about a fictitious past, in what she calls "a delightful talk about old times," and wound up with a ghost story which convulsed his audience. The next entertainments will take place at Association Hall on the afternoon and evening of Wednesday, November 26, when, as Mr. Clemens expresses it, he will "continue to make his last, final farewell appearance."