Mark Twain hit these disappointed orators off admirably. He said that his wife had told him the night before that he would be called upon to make a speech and at her instigation he sat up six hours and wrote one out. He then woke her up and read it. She said, very well, but you can’t read that off—“you deliver it extemporere.” He sat up six hours longer, got it by heart, and gave the manuscript to his wife to keep:—“and now,” said he, “after all my labor and loss of sleep, you won’t let me deliver that extemporere speech!” (Moran, 35:233–34)