August 9 Saturday – Brand Whitlock (1869-1934), municipal reformer, “novelist, politician, diplomat and a devoted younger friend of Howells,” visited Sam. Mrs. Whitlock accompanied her husband. Whitlock wrote a friend on Aug. 11:
Saturday, armed with a letter from Mr. Howells, we went up to Sewall’s Bridge, and there for an hour we sat on the veranda of his summer home and drank tea and smoked a cigar—at least I smoked a cigar—with Mark Twain. We had a characteristic experience of him. He sat there in a blue coat and white trousers, with that beautiful plume of white hair, and the heavy eyebrows shading his twinkling eyes, while he convulsed us with story after story [MTHL 2 : 744n1]. Note: Sam mentioned the visit in his Aug. 11 postcard to Howells. Born Joseph Brand Whitlock, he was four times elected mayor of Toledo, Ohio. In a letter dated Apr. 8, 1907, Whitlock wrote to William Dean Howells, remarking how Sam’s A.D. appearing in the N.A.R. reminded him of the time at Sewall’s Bridge—see April 11, 1907, when Howells forwarded Whitlock’s letter to Sam (Vol. IV, forthcoming).