October 23 Wednesday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam wrote to “Miss Anonyma.”

Dear Miss Anonyma: / This is to express my joy in the fact that you are able to go fishing, & to thank you very heartily for letting me share in the result. It is my purpose to call & say these things orally this afternoon, & so I am merely uttering them with the pen as a precaution, since it often happens—as you will have noticed—that the things we propose to do get interfered with & do not occur.

Also a part of this note’s purpose is to say good bye to your mother—not to you, dear, for I shall see you later. At the ball. Where, with your kind permission, we will do the Virginia Reel together, & try to attract some attention. You will wear your new things, of course, & that will help. Next morning early, I return to 21 Fifth Ave for good, there to discard crime once more & lead an upright life again. This will attract attention. It is what we live for. Besides, such changes are often salutary [MTP]. Note: “Anonyma” was slang in the 1860s for “a fashionable whore.” Whomever Sam crowned with this name, if they knew of the old meaning, would have been a lady who could take a joke. Sam moved back to 21 Fifth Ave. the next daty, Thursday, Oct. 24, according to his Oct. 28 to Nunnally; the Annual Cotillion of Tuxedo Club was held on Friday, Oct. 25, so that he must have traveled back to the club for the ball, referred to in his above letter to Miss Anonyma, not further identified, though it may have been Mary Rogers, whom Clemens loved to joke with.

Isabel Lyon’s journal: This morning the financial outlook was a bad one. Yesterday’s paper said aid would be given to Knickerbocker, but it wasn’t forthcoming. This morning when I went to the King’s room his face looked grey, but he was brave and cheerful and talked over what we must do. Sell the steel bonds a few at a time to build the Redding house with, for the autobiography money is in the Knickerbocker, and live on what comes from the Harpers. Clara’s expenses this summer have been extremely great. We thought they were heavy other year, but this year has exceeded the others, and she has all her plans made for another costly concert tour.

Mr. and Mrs. Hoffman lunched here and before they arrived the King went down on the porch and walked up and down, singing the kind of song that means his heart is very heavy and oh, he does need some one to love him and pet him. He has decided to go to N.Y. tomorrow and the house here is to be closed on Saturday [MTP TS 118].

Howells & Stokes wrote to Sam a bill for $2,732.56 “in favor of Mr. William Webb Sunderland”; they wanted Sam to pay sunderland direct [MTP].

Sam attended a ball in Tuxedo Park on his last night at the exclusive neighborhood [Oct. 23 to “Miss Anonyma”].