Thursday, December 18, 1884: -- Sunday, December 28, 1884:
He would most likely have taken the Lakeshore Railroad to either Dunkirk or Buffalo. From either of these location Sam could take the New York, Lake Erie and Western (the name of the Erie Railroad from 1878 to 1895). From Dunkirk he would pass through Salamanca. Either route would take him through Elmira and I have found no reference to his visiting Elmira at this time. Another route from Buffalo would be on the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad.
Sam and Cable took a Christmas break, this day being a travel day. Sam headed for New York where he spent the night at the Everett House, where he’d asked Webster to call on the morning of Dec. 19 [Dec. 15 to Webster, MTP]. Cable headed to his home in Simsbury, Conn., but stopped in New York where he appeared alone on Dec. 19 at the Y.M.C.A. [Cardwell 31; Turner, MT & GWC 75]. December 19 Friday – Sam, after meeting with Charles Webster, probably headed straight home for Hartford, although no documentation for this date has been found.
Sam wrote to James B. Pond December 22. Evidently, newspaper reviews aside, Sam was growing tired of Cable, and had concluded he’d do better without him. You were right, when you said in the Brunswick hotel last summer that I would draw better all by myself. It is true. I thought Cable would be a novelty, but alas he has been everywhere, & is a novelty nowhere. I wish I could pay him $200 a week to withdraw, & pay the little Russian musician a reasonable sum to take his place. I would do it in a minute. Personally I like Cable immensely; & in his right place he ought to be a good card—but he is not in his right place now.
Sam felt that Cable drew only a “sixteenth part of the house, & he invariably does two-thirds of the reading. I cannot stand that any longer. He may have 35 or 38 minutes on the platform, & no more.” Sam wanted Cable to cut his selections because overall he felt the show was too long. He also felt Cleveland and Detroit were “well worked & advertised” [MTP].
December 28 Sunday – Sam took the train from New York in the morning and traveled all day. He wrote at 9:30 P.M from Pittsburgh to Livy. Cable had arrived on Dec. 27. Sam asked that a letter he’d left at Hartford from a “Chicago poetess” be sent on to him. He told of an attempt by the railroad to “curtail his liberties” after breaking some rule (possibly smoking). After tangling with the head conductor, who got civil at some point, Sam insisted the man report him, because he was going to “drag it [the rule] in the dirt all day.”
"Of course he couldn’t do anything, so he had to leave me alone—to the joy of all the passengers. They said they had often seen the rule applied, but had never seen it resisted before. I wonder if we shall have any liberties left, by & by, if we keep up our American habit of meekly submitting to every imposition that is put upon us [MTP].