March 17 Wednesday — Sam recorded the last time he ever saw Ralph W. Ashcroft, and included Horace Hazen’s explanation of his note of “discharge”:
Up to this time Ashcroft had rendered a weekly Statement every Saturday in accordance with the requirements of one of those 13th of March contracts (the ingenious one that cunningly neglected to mention any “consideration” & was therefore worthless): & he slipped in on that errand on Saturday the 17th; did the work, then slipped away again. I saw him from my windows disappearing down the road in the distance, & have never seen him since, I think.
Miss Lyon lingered along about a few days, She came mornings about 10, & went home to her cottage about 5. She had nothing official to do, for I was attending to the secretary-work myself, with Mr. Grumman the stenographer. Still, she lingered, fussing at her trunks in the attic & busying herself in various ways with her own affairs.
I wished she would go, but I couldn’t tell her so.
The next thing that happened was, that Horace appeared. I asked him to explain the mystery of the Norfolk letter.
“How did you come to say Miss Clara had discharged you when it wasn’t true?”
He was very penitent, & said he was ashamed of himself & sorry he had done it.
“Well, then, what possessed you to do it, Horace?”
Then it came out that Ashcroft made him do it!
“Ashcroft? How could Ashcroft make you do it, & be away down in Virginia?”
“No, Mr. Clemens, he was here. On the 30th of March I had my talk with Miss Clemens, & she raised my wages to $45 & an extra [day off], & he I was satisfied. Mr. Ashcroft was not [several illegible and cancelled words| here then; he had gone to New York on the noon train. Next morning—31st—you & Miss Clemens went to New York by the 10.31, & Mr. Ashcroft came up by the noon train & got to the house about 2. He told me I was going to be discharged, & I’d better quit before I was discharged. He said Miss Clemens was going to discharge all the servants. He told me to write a letter to you, & he made me say ‘discharged.’ That was his word, I said it wasn’t right, because I hadnt’ been discharged, but he said use that word, & he made me use it, & said it would be worth a month’s wages to me.”
“Why this is splendid; it’s like a romance! Go on,”
"Mr. Clemens, I don’t think I would have sent that letter that way, I would have changed it.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I couldn’t, because as soon as it was finished he took it.”
“Took it away with him?”
“Yes, sir. I didn’t see it any more. He left for New York next morning, April 1, by the 7 o’clock train.”
Isn’t it interesting? And isn’t it just like the cheap villain in a seventh-rate play? [MTP: L-A MS XIII].
Note: see Apr. 2 for a continuation.
In the evening, Sam attended the Lotos Club dinner in honor of Andrew Carnegie. The New York Times reported on the event, Mar. 18, p.9:
CARNEGIE HONORED BY CLUB HE FINANCED
How He Came Forward at Critical Period of 1907 Panic
Told at the Lotos Club Dinner.
MANY PAY HIM TRIBUTE
President Lawrence, Ex-Ambassador Tower, Editor McKelway,
and Others Speak—The Laird’s Happy Reply.
Andrew Carnegie was the guest of honor last night at the first dinner given by the Lotos Club in the club’s new home, at 110 West Fifty-seventy Street, whose very existence at this time was due, President Frank S. Lawrence announced, to the generosity and liberality of Mr. Carnegie at one of the most critical periods in the club’s history.
The occasion was made a great feast of friendship and good-fellowship, with Mr. Carnegie as the chief figure. Tributes were paid to his worth as a citizen and his wisdom and generosity as a philanthropist by Mark Twain, introduced as “St. Mark” Twain; Charlemagne Tower, ex-Ambassador to Germany, Richard Watson Gilder, St. Clair McKelway, President John H. Finley of the City College, the Rev. Dr. Nehemiah H. Boynton of Brooklyn, Dr. Henry S. Pritchett of the Sage Foundation, and others.
One of the most humorous and charming of the addresses of the evening was delivered by Mr. Carnegie himself, who was almost boyish in his fun-making, and literally bubbling over with enjoyment of the affair.
Mr. Carnegie sat at the right of President Lawrence, the toastmaster, and immediately in front of a handsome life-size painting of himself.
...[deleted about Carnegie]...
“We have heard a good deal about St. Patrick this evening,” said the toastmaster. “We have heard from St. Clair, and now we shall hear from St. Mark.”
Mark ‘Twain began by saying: “I am glad I have got my due. At last I am ranked with the saints, where I belong.”
Mr. Clemens said it was hard to be complimenting and complimented as Mr. Carnegie had been. Mr. Lawrence had said the Laird of Skibo had helped the club out when it was in difficulties, but he had no doubt Mr. Carnegie had received the inspiration at a dinner at which he (Mark Twain) was the guest of honor.
“But,” he went on, “he gets all the credit and I get none.
“Now, he is trying to look indifferent, but he is not deceiving anybody. To hear him talk, everybody in this country who amounts to anything came from Scotland. I am not denying it, but it is simply immodest for him to say so. He and St. Patrick and all the rest came from Dumfermline, from what Tower and St. Clair McKelway say, and you wonder if Columbus wasn’t of those Dumfermline folks, too. St. Clair McKelway just piled the compliments on, saying he even wanted to pay more taxes than they charged him. It is all right; he deserves it all and if these others hadn’t said it I would have had to say it myself.”’
Some of those present were Samuel Untermyer, Charles W. Fuller, Dr. W. W. Walker, Ernest W. Behrens, A. A. Allen, J. R Andrews, William Berri, George A. Hearn, Sir Caspar Purdon Clarke, Ezra De Forest, Col. George Harvey, J. W. Harper, C. J. Fitzgerald, J. A. Flagler, Richard C. Velt, William A. Libby, Henry Wollman, J. Takamine, Martin Saxe, John F, O’Rourke, Supreme Court Justice Charles F. McLean, J.H. McKinley, and Chester S. Lord.