July 7 Saturday

Sam’s notebook: “Bram Stoker. Good morals, & how to get along without them. / Diffidence—& how to acquire it. Irving. / Savage Club—6. / How shall we divide up China? Stanley. /A. By giving it all to Russia under a “temporary lease,” like Port Arthur [NB 43 TS 21].

Sam inscribed the Menu for the Savage Club dinner to Mrs. John Y. MacAlister: “Punctuality is the thief of time / With kindest regards to Mrs. Mac Alister” [MTP]. Note: the menu bore a caricature of Mark Twain.

Watson writes of Sam “in the chair” at the Savage Club’s last Saturday night dinner of the season:

More than a year had elapsed before Mark Twain was able to redeem his promise to preside over a Savage feast, and again his presence was in the character of a surprise. The Saturday night dinners come to an end in July, and the attendance had been thinning down for some weeks past. It was a question of whether another dinner could be held if it were not possible to secure a greatly popular chairman. Colonel Rogers, who had visited Hartford, Mark Twain’s home, some years before, only to find that its most famous inhabitant had just left for Europe, suggested that as Clemens was then in London he should be asked to take the chair. It was then Friday morning, and communication was made by telephone. Yes, he would come; he would be delighted. Word was sent round at once, and on July 7, 1900, there was the biggest and most jovial dinner of the year, with Mark Twain enjoying himself to the top of his bent, and diffusing around him an atmosphere of high exhilaration. He new that it was against the rule to make speeches, he remarked; but he was in the chair, and a chairman was monarch of all he surveyed. He should therefore make as many speeches as he liked; and he did, in fact, make two, each of them distinguished by wit, raillery, and that power of story-telling of which is he is the supreme master. He was on several other occasions at the Club, calling there for letters, and to see friends; but was not again present on a Saturday night [130].