December 12 Thursday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote two notes to H.H. Rogers. The first concerned Rockefeller’s Dec. 10 invitation to read or speak on Dec. 27:
I found a note from Mr. Rockefeller when I got back home yesterday, and I answered accepting his invitation and saying I would read or talk, whichever he might prefer—I named “Two Little Tales” as the reading.
If he should choose the reading, here’s ammunition for comment!—a text to glaringly illustrate the futility of trying to write anything that a born idiot can be made to understand.
The Madam says—but as I told you yesterday, we can’t word it, we can only feel it. You are just too dear and lovely for anything!
After his signature he added a PS that if he read, Rogers “must be there,” but if he talked, to stay home and not waste his time. He then wrote: “An’ ye’ll plaze me if ye’ll send the idiot’s letters back. I’ll always inthrojuce them whin I publicly read the ‘Two Little Tales’” [MTHHR 477]. Note: “Two Little Tales” ran in the Nov. 1901 Century. It is about the futility of writing a stranger asking for anything, and proposes a better method of unknown people gaining a desired action from powerful people.
Sam wrote a second note to Rogers at the top of a Dec. 5 form letter by Charles E. Flandrau, president of the St. Paul Roller Mill Co. to its stockholders:
For 20 years I have owned $5,000 of this stock. It has paid one dividend; that was 19 years ago.
I know no one connected with the concern now. Shall I send a proxy? And shall I make it to this President—Flandrau? / SLC [MTHHR 477]. Note: source n2 cites two dividends: 2% on Mar. 30, 1891, and 1&1/2 % on Nov. 7, 1891 (see both in Vol. II). Sam added to this note on Dec. 13; see entry.
Harper & Brothers wrote to Sam:
In reply to your letter of the 10th inst., we beg leave to say that, in our opinion, we can make a small book of “The Double-Barrelled Detective Story” and sell about 35,000 copies in a short time, at $1.50. or, we can add “The Death Disk”, and “Adam’s Diary” to the volume, and sell, say, 10,000 at $1.75. Which proposition strikes you most favorably? [MTP]. Note: “The Death Disk” was later called “The Death Wafer,” and was published in the Dec. 1901 Harper’s.
Albert Phelps wrote from New Orleans to Sam: “I received yesterday your very kind letter, saying that you had received the MS scenario of my play, & that you would put it into Irving’s hands when he shall have returned to New York. I thank you sincerely for your kindness…” [MTP]. Note: see Grace King’s Nov. 24.