Dennison House.

Saturday, February 7, 1885:

Sam got up at 7 AM and took a train to Indianapolis, Indiana. On the train he wrote to Livy, explaining how black coffee made him “cheerful, & easy, & confidential & conversational with the audience,” but it didn’t protect him from “disastrous lapses of memory which come of over-fatigue.” Sam was counting the days now till he would be home, “at half past 3 on a Sunday morning Feb. 22!” [MTP]

Sam and Cable gave a reading at the Plymouth Church, Indianapolis, Indiana. Sam’s black coffee again helped him through the evening reading, according to a Feb. 7 letter to Livy. Sam also mentioned enjoying a reading in Ft. Wayne on Feb. 5 in this letter. At 10:30 In the evening, Maurice Thompson, the poet, came by and visited until midnight.

See Touring with Cable and Huck for review.

“He complained of his companion again on the sixth in a letter dated from Lafayette, Indiana” (pg 55 Cardwell)

Sam wrote from Indianapolis to Livy. He blamed Cable for his own supposed shortcomings: It is Cable’s fault that I have done inferior reading all this time. He has hogged so much of the platform-time that I have always felt obliged to hurry along at lightning speed in order to keep the performance within bounds; but now I take my own time, & give 25 minutes to pieces which formerly occupied but 15. If this show were new, I would cut a third of him out of the program....I am paying Cable $450 a week & expenses. He isn’t worth a penny over $200. He is not a novelty anywhere...his same old stuff...doesn’t prepare himself with untried matter....He will find a sickly way of making a living [MTP].

Railroads:  Lafayette and Indianapolis, Toledo and Western