January 3 Friday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam inscribed an aphorism on a calendar page for Jan. 3, 1908 to Mr. Randall: “We ought never to do wrong when people are looking. / Truly Yours / Mark Twain” [MTP: Profiles in History catalogs, No. 1, Item 55].

Isabel Lyon’s journal:  Dear Santa [Clara] comes in to sit by me because I’m in bed to get rid of the grippe & when I said it was such a wonderful place to stay in that I’d do it often, she remarked, “Yes, we certainly have got the bed bug habit.”

I went down for dinner, & I had the King all to myself. I was so glad—so very glad for he was sweet, very delicate & like his old self before warring outside things came in to harshen him up and make him rude to me. But I do not really care. He had many things on his mind to exasperate him, & as Tino says, he had to explode to someone. So I’m glad I’ve been his safety valve [MTP: IVL TS 2]. Note: “Tino” was Albert Bigelow Paine’s nickname.

Susanna Deacon wrote to Sam. “How delightful! Indeed yes, I will go to the ‘Doc’ party, don’t put it off too long however for in the interval I shall be unable to settle my mind to any thing serious…So Mrs Riggs has thrown the gauntlet? May she not be defeated! But secretly between you and me, the Doc is too flattered…” [MTP].

Neal Champ, age 78, wrote to Sam from St. Louis, relating people he’d known 50 years before in Hannibal, and writing of the time he pulled Sammy Clemens from the river [MTP]. Note: Lyon wrote on the letter, “Deer Creek Life Saved several times”