March 22 Friday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote an introductory note for Frederick Upham Adams (representing Harper’s) to Dr. John S. Billings. The introduction was “upon library business” [MTP].
Isabel Lyon’s journal: Gov. and Mrs. Warfield, Dr. and Mrs. Kinnicutt, Miss Herrick, Dorothea G., [Gilder], Count Spiridowitch and Melville Stone dined here this evening, and it was all so satisfactory and delightful. Roses and freesia we had for flowers, and Katy Laundress cooked a delicious dinner and every thing was right—exactly right. All these people were strangers to me, but I soon lost my shyness. Gov. Warfield sat on my right and told about his plantation home, and about Annapolis. He is the 13th Governor who has lived in the new executive mansion. And we are to go down there in May and visit them. The King found Mrs. Warfield very sweet and very behind the times, oh, very! for she believes that the animals were put here as food for us. I reminded the King that she was a Presbyterian and he said that he was too, but a pretty pale Presbyterian beside her. The King reminisced about his early days as a reporter and about his experiences in boarding houses in the far west.
I am too exhausted to remember much about it. Once or twice today I felt that I must give up & find some one else to take my place tonight, but things revived me. When we went down to wait the arrival of the guests, Mr. Clemens found a letter from a man who has been reading the C.S. book and who came across the sentence: “and naively explaining which Sir William Wallace it was; lest we get the wrong one by the hassock.” He was troubled, so sat down at once to explain what a “hassock’ is, then thinking the King meant “cassock”, he explained the meaning of that word too. The King enjoyed it ever so much but was sorry that the writer was a Scotchman [MTP TS 42-43].
James E. Gallagher wrote from Berkeley, Calif. to Sam, enclosing a clipping (not in file) and asking, “Are they correct in attributing to you the ‘Punch with care’ verses? I had always thought Mr. Isaac (‘Ike’) Bromley—my old friend and doubtless yours, too, wrote them” [MTP]. Note: Lyon wrote on the letter: “They ingeniously combined the signs around in the horse car— / Mr. Bromley & Noah Brooks patched together those rhymes & published them. I took the rhythmes & commented upon them & published them. / The jingle drove me mad & I wrote the sketch in order that it might drive some other people mad.”
John Mead Howells sent Sam “notes of decisions reached at meeting at Mr. Clemens’ House /
March 22 , 1907.” Details about windows, screens, weather stripping, floors, window trim, call bells, etc. [MTP].
Franklin G. Whitmore wrote to Sam. “Dear Brer:—/ You will have overlook my shortcomings in not writing you before this late hour and telling you how much pleasure and enjoyment you gave me during my visit with you. It was…like old times to be playing billiards with you again…” [MTP].