July 28 Saturday – At Dollis Hill House in London, England Sam wrote to John Campbell Gordon (1847-1934), aka Marquess of Aberdeen:

We all join in thanks to you for inviting us, & we were cordially sorry we were prevented from taking advantage of it. No doubt the rain made the Terrace untenable, but if we could have gone we should have arrived just in time to hear the Premier & Lord Rosebery speak…./ I am still the gout’s slave, but the servitude is less onerous than it was [MTP]. Note: Archibald Philip Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery 1847-1929) British Liberal and Prime Minister, also known as Archibald Primrose (1847–1851) and Lord Dalmeny (1851–1868).

Sam also replied to Samuel E. Moffett, whose incoming is not extant, but which contained an article by Moffett which used private letters of Sam’s. Sam took exception to this and railed on Will M. Clemens:

I perceive that it will not answer. It is but another proof that there is no art which can make the private letters of living men read with a saving grace in print. When the man is dead, that is all changed; his exposed vanities & self-complacencies do not offend, then. Your article is good, & should not be thrown away, but preserved; then used when I am presently under the sod.

Sam called Will M. Clemens “that singular tapeworm who seems to feed solely upon other people’s intestines.”

He has contracted with an Indianapolis house to do me up in three books—one, my platform-life; another, my private letters; another, general. I have notified him that if he prints either of them before my death I will stop its issue. And now I have a response from him—a response which the idiot thinks is pathetic. He thinks it very hard that after he has slaved all his life gathering sewage from my drain, I should drop ruthlessly down upon him & say “Drop that!” The rest of the letter is a veiled threat; i.e., his turn is coming some day, then we shall see what we shall see… / I wonder what this bastard’s real name is.

After his signature Sam wrote he was returning Moffett’s MS, that he had thought of editing the letters included but didn’t “because that would hardly be square” [MTP].

Sam’s notebook: “He saw him draw checks & collect the money. He innocently drew one himself, signed his own name, tore it out & presented it—& didn’t get the money” [NB 43 TS 22].

James E. Lyones for Northern Newspaper Syndicate in Kendal, England wrote to Sam. “Will you kindly say whether you will do for us one, two or three short stories, for delivery in the spring of 1902…each of 3,500 words in length?” £30 was offered for two stories [MTP].