Artemus Ward, foppish, merry, tubercular, Lincoln’s favorite humorist, doomed… arrived in Virginia City to lecture at the Opera House. DeQuille and Sam meet the great Bohemian writer. They partied for 11 days straight. Artemus Ward gets Sam a writing gig with the New york Sunday Mercury. The advice is to get popular in the East. Get popular there and Europe will hear about you, get popular in Europe and then you can die.
Ward tells sam to get the hell out of the territories, keep the accent, and go on the circuit like him. Get published in NYC press then arrive into town and pay to play, for a lecture. The press will send a reviewer because you’re already on their mind. They will all hail you so as to claim to have discovered a new talent. Don’t let a paper present your first lecture, every other paper will pan you.