February 8 Monday — In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote “the newest postcard” (“Posing for Admiration”) to daughter Jean.
Your letter has just arrived Jean dear, & is very welcome. Ashcroft is back from England (whither he went on business for me). Clara & Gabrilowitsch have arrived on a flying visit. Miss Lyon is still in bed in the doctor’s hands. we’ve got a new stenographer—a he one this time—to whom I can dictate [one word canceled] cuss-words if I want to. That’s all the news, dear. Never mind about the mud, it won’t show on that smoke-complected puppy.
With love & kisses— Father
[in left margin:| These are the newest postcards [MTP]. Note: see insert postcard.
Sam also wrote to Frances Nunnally.
You dear Francesca, I find your last Jan.11) in my letter-drawer, marked “not yet answered.” I remember now—I answered it in imagination & stopped with that; just as a person winds his watch in imagination, with the result that presently the watch stops.
Soon afterward I went to New York & stayed 8 days. I thought I might never go again, & so I might best make a long stay.
Miss Lyon is sick abed these two or three weeks. It is a sort of nervous break-down, attributable to too much work & care. But she is mending.
Ashcroft has been England for me, & has just arrived back. He saw a number of your acquaintances & mine. Also he went to the English angel-fish’s house to carry a message from me, & she answered the door-bell herself. He asked—in his punishable way—“Are you Dorothy?” and answered “Yes—are you Mr. Ashcroft? We do not know how she was able to make that guess. He dined with her & her parents, & they all went to the theatre.
Dr. Quintard has been here to-day, with a friend: Clara & Gabrilowitsch came yesterday, Ashcroft will arrive again to-night, & Martin Littleton & his wife will come for over Sunday. We have had 141 guests since the end of June—& very very good times. You talk as if maybe you can’t come at Easter, & it makes me ever so sorry. Your parents have the first claim, but I am not going to stop hoping yet a while.
I hear Ashcrofts wheels a-churning along; I'll run down & welcome him. Good-bye, dear heart, with lots of love—/SLC
The plumber is coming Feb. 23d, a girl you would greatly like. She isn't a M. A., but is not without good qualities, nevertheless. She is official plumber of Stormfield, by her own request, but doesn’t know how to plumb. Name, Margery Clinton [MTP; MTAq 248-9]. Note. from entries in the guestbook, it seems clear that Clemens wrote this letter on Feb. 8, and misdated it, Apr. 9, which the MTP had cataloged it as. I wrote to Victor Fischer of the MTP explaining the evidence for a Feb. 8 date and he agreed on Apr. 7, 2011.
Sam’s new guest book:
| Name | Address | Date | Remarks |
| Dr. Edward Quintard —— | "" New York] | [Feb.] 8 | |
| Mr. [Charles E.] Wark — | 8 ---- | [Clara's accompanist] |
A.B. Johnson for NJ State Christian Endeavor Union, Newark N.J. wrote for his boy to ask Sam how Clemens acquired his nom-de-plume [MTP].
Lieutenants’ Benevolent Assoc. of NYC Police sent an engraved invitation to their annual dinner on Feb. 8 at the Waldorf Astoria [MTP].