October 31 Wednesday – At the Hotel Earlington in N.Y.C., Sam wrote to Channing H. Cook. “Dr. Cook / General Manager: / I discover no error in the remarks concerning Plasmon. They are as I worded them” [MTP]. Note: this was included in Sam’s Oct. 31 to MacAlister (below) “to be presently distributed as an ad.”

Sam also wrote to John Y. MacAlister, transcribing the note to Cook (above):

This following is to precede a brief interview concerning Plasmon, to be presently distributed as an ad.

[note to Cook transcribed]. Send me London & Berlin reports.

The factory here will be on the famous dairy-farm of Briarcliff….Rich New Yorkers take Briarcliff products, the others can’t afford them. Mr. Law, the proprietor, owns in the Plasmon Syndicate here. He is a millionaire [MTP].

Sam also wrote to Laurence Hutton in Princeton, N.J..

Mrs. Clemens says, “tell the Huttons we are all balled up by these hellfired house-agents, & can’t tell whether we can get to Princeton or not, on Saturday, but that we are going to try our hardest.” (The rest is too warm for me to write, reared as I was reared.)

And she says, “if they get no telegram from us Friday, it means that we leave here next day by 10.55; & that if we reach Princeton in time for the ball-game, you (me) will want to go, & I (she) too, if I am not too — — tired” [MTP]. Note: Sam’s Nov. 7 to Hutton shows that they did go, but the ball game is not mentioned.

Sam then wrote one line to James B. Pond: “We can’t go to Henry V. I forgot that we are to be out of town Saturday & Sunday” [MTP]. Note: To visit the Huttons in Princeton, N.J..

Sam also wrote to Emilie R. Rogers (Mrs. H.H. Rogers).

Mrs. Clemens took my statistics & discovered what I hadn’t thought of: that there would be no study for me & no sewing-room; & so, to our sorrow we had to give up Madison avenue.

I don’t think we are to have a house at all; but Mrs. Clemens is going hunting again to-morrow. That bars her going to your house for luncheon….

She wants Rose; she has a cook & two maids, but she wouldn’t take that colored butler. We are all fixed for housekeeping—lacking the butler—but we are short of one minor detail—a house [MTHHR 453].

Note: evidently a possibility of housing on Madison avenue had been recommended by Mrs. Rogers, but it didn’t fit their needs; And while the house at 14 W. 10th was a possibility (they hadn’t yet signed the lease) Livy was still looking for something better. By the following day, Nov. 1, they had decided to take the 10th street property, as Sam wrote Bliss they were moving in that afternoon.

Sam also wrote to decline an invitation from unidentified men, having “been much pressed & have neglected duties” [MTP: Christie’s East catalog, 22 May 2000, Item 233].

Sam’s notebook: “Destruction 10 miles by an explosive invented by Napier / Dam your river if you like, but never your friend” [NB 43 TS 28].