After another Sunday layover, they “came within an ace of missing’ their engagement in Brockville, Canada, spending “11½ hours making a 7-hour trip" there for an appearance Monday evening. [From page 448 The Life of Mark Twain - The Middle Years 1871-1891]

In a Feb. 17 letter to Livy, Sam explained why he did not write on Feb. 16. On the train all day, Cable asked to borrow Sam’s writing pad. Though it was “pretty thin,” Sam thought there’d be enough. Cable wrote eight letters and used up the pad. “I was so disappointed & so mad that I spoke my mind rather freely—at least in manner, though not so much in words. (He has never bought one single sheet of paper or an envelop in all these 3 1⁄2 months—sponges all his stationery ... from the hotels. His body is small, but it is much too large for his soul” [MTP].

In the evening Sam and Cable gave a reading in Grand Opera House, Brockville, Canada. Cable wrote, “We did not read in Kingston. The appointment was changed to Brockville...” [Turner, MT & GWC 108].