January 27 Thursday — In Hamilton, Bermuda Sam wrote to Albert B. Paine in Redding, Conn.
Dear Paine; / While the matter is in my mind I will remark that if you ever send me another letter which is not paged at the top I will write you with my own hand so that I may use with utter freedom & without embarrassment the kind of words which alone can describe such a criminal; to-wit, Y----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- You will have to put into words those dashes because propriety will not allow me to do it myself in my Secretary’s hearing. The other night I picked up three of your letters with the intention of answering them but they had lain several days on my extra bed and had gotten mixed to-getherer with this result: that inasmuch as you had neglected to page them I was not able to hunt my way through them, and had to give up trying. There were several explosions of language. You are forgiven, but don’t let this occur again—please, please don’t.
One of these letters was about my bank account. A page was missing. It must have been from that missing page that I had gotten the impression that I had a personal credit in one of the banks of about $5000. The remains of that letter furnished me certain details to wit:—$332; $139; $3053; $229, total $3754— You suggested that I send a check transfering about $4000 to the Liberty. Very well I sent a check for $3800 and I find that this exhausts that credit and $50 more. Where is the other $1500 of the alleged $5000,
I am going to do as you suggested—as soon as I think of it—to wit: hand my check book to Mr. Allen and let him dig the insanities out of it, if he can. Which is doutful as I have been meddeling with it myself and now I can make neither head nor tail of it
Please send me another dozen of poor Jean’s $50 worth of pads for I seem to have used up neatly all of those I brought with me,
Paine won’t you tell the Major or Mr. Dunneka that I want to see what Howels & James say about the turning point of life when their articles appear in the Bazar,
I note that the bicycle is on its way and I wish to thank you for your promt & intelligent execution of this Commision.
With assurances of my continued admiration & affection / Sincerely yours [in right margin, in hand of SLC: postage-economy.]
P.S. Never mind the pads—send me a lot of thin, strong paper such as the stenographers use. This is for postage-economy [MTP],
Sam’s notebook: W.W Jacobs Doubleday > Kipling & “Wehat is Man? (2) / Duneka H / Harvey Class / Twichell Mr. Littleton Lord Northcliffe Billie Burke Carnegie [NB 49 TS 1].
Note: this the last notebook of Twain lacks any dates save for the names above. The TS is only 8 pages.
G.J. Stanley Fleming from Presidency General Hospital, Calcutta, India wrote condolences [MTP].
Robert E. Shafer wrote from Nazareth, Penn. to send Sam his “new national anthem,” “Hymn of the Nation” (in the file) [MTP].