December 8 Saturday – At the New Willard Hotel, Washington, D.C., Sam wrote Emilie R. Rogers:

Oh, dear me I am ashamed! I forgot to telephone you (in my hurry) that I must rush off to Washington in the interest of the new copyright bill & couldn’t keep my engagement for 5 p.m. yesterday with you. I am dreadfully sorry, & I apologize.

I came down to do a few days’ or a week’s lobbying, leaving to the others the speech-making before the committee; but yesterday afternoon when I was tired out & asleep in the Speaker’s private room in the Capitol I was ordered to go before the Committee & speak; which I did; then I resumed my lobbying again, shall now go on with it from day to day. I tried to persuade Uncle Joe Cannon to smuggle me in on the floor of the House for lobbying purposes, but he won’t. However, he has compromised by doing for me what he has not done for a lobbyist before, probably: he gave me his private room for as long as I want it, & a servant to invite members  to come in & talk copyright; & so I shall stay here & conduct a strenuous private canvass of the House.

Clara invited you & Uncle Henry but I didn’t know, when I left home, whether you had accepted or not. I hope I’ll be there when you come, but I may be disappointed, for I must abide here & keep on striking while the iron is hot—for this a very important bill. Lobbying, man by man, buttonhole by buttonhole, is the only possible way to get it through, & there is no one to help me in this. It carried the bill of 22 years ago, & I am fully as shameless a lobbyist as I was then.

With love to you both …. [MTP].

Harper’s Weekly ran a photo of Mark Twain in bed captioned: “The Musing Sage and—” juxtaposed with a drawing of the same scene captioned “The Accidental Little Girl in the Pillow.” Under the illustrations a poem by L.J. Bridgman, “To Mark Twain.” See insert Muriel M. Pears wrote from Washington, D.C. to Sam.

My greatest and Dear Magician,

      Is it possible you are in town and I haved only this instant heard it? But I might have known, for only this morning I was thinking of you with a sudden vividness and actuality, so that I said aloud: “I do wish I had a little time to sit down and tell that Dear man what I had been feeling over his autobiography…” She asked if he might call on her if he was to be there awhile. She was staying with a friend and would sail for home next month [MTP]. Note: written on the letter, “She called at Capitol.”

Clemens A.D. for this day is listed by MTP.