February 12 Thursday – William Dean Howells wrote a spoof to Sam of a dream he’d had:
I know you are harassed by a great many things, and I hate to add to your worries, but I must really complain to you of the behavior of your man Sam. I called last night at your place with our old friend Stoddard, and found that to reach the house, I had to climb a plowed field, at the top of which Sam was planting potatoes. A number of people were waiting at the bottom of the field, and hesitating whether to go up, but I explained that we were old acquaintances, and we were going to see you at once. We pushed on, and when we came in easy hail of Sam, he called very rudely to us, and asked us what we wanted. I said we wanted to see you, and he said, “Well, you can’t do it,” and no persuasion that I could use had the least effect with him. He said that nobody could see you, and when I gave him my card, and promised him that he would not have a pleasant time with you, when you found out whom he had turned away, he sneered and said he would not give you the card. To avoid mortifying inquiries from the people we had left at the foot of the hill, we came down another way, and though I momently expected a recall from your house, none followed us, and we made our way home the best we could. This happened, as nearly as I can make out, at about three o’clock in the morning. I have only too much reason to believe that Sam really withheld my card, and I wish you would ask him for it, and make him account in some way for our extraordinary treatment. I cannot remember that Stoddard said anything, but I felt he was as much annoyed as myself. Yours ever… [MTHL 2: 763-4]. Note: Sam wrote on the envelope, “Bet Howells is drunk yet.”
Sam’s notebook: The time in St. Louis in ’53, aged 17 ½ , that I took the shy pretty girl from up country to Ben de Bar’s theatre to see Toodles & had on new 6s when my number was 7s, & slipped them off & couldn’t get them on again, & walked home with them under my arm—white socks & it was raining / [Double horiz. Line separator] / Time the old-time matches caught fire in my pocket [NB 46 TS 10; also Gribben 570, in part].
Robert Lutz, Sam’s defacto publisher in Stuttgart, Germany, wrote wanting a document authorizing him to sell “The Californian’s Tale” which was first published by Chatto & Windus in TS,D in 1896, and in March 1902 in Harper’s Magazine [MTP].