January 19 Sunday – In the morning Dr. Edward Quintard checked on Sam’s condition again, noting that he was “no worse” [NY Times Jan. 20, 1908, p.9 “Mark Twain No Worse”].
The New York Times, Jan. 18, 1908, ran a squib under “City Brevities” p.9:
Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain) and Supreme Court Justice Greenbaum will address the annual meeting of the Hebrew Technical School for Girls to-morrow morning at 10:30 o’clock [Jan. 19] in the school building at Fifteenth Street and Second Avenue [Note: Sam was in bed with bronchitis and did not make this event. He sent a letter, not extant, to the group, expressing his regrets for not being present –New York Times, Jan 20, p.6 “Praises Teaching of Girls to Cook.” [Note: Samuel Greenbaum (1854-1930), was appointed to the NY Supreme Court in 1901 and served until 1923.]
The New York Times ran an article which included Mark Twain’s Jan. 17 letter to “Other Depositors of the Knickerbocker Trust Co.”
THE KNICKERBOCKER GETS 2 WEEKS MORE
Additional Assents to Satterlee Resumption Plan Coming in Rapidly.
MARK TWAIN’S WARNING
Tells Fellow-Depositors Who Are Holding Back to Hurry Back, as Does Justice Clarke Also.
Cheering news for depositors in the failed Knickerbocker Trust Company came from more than one quarter yesterday. At the hearing before Justice Clarke on Staten Island yesterday the announcement was made that $34,600,000 of deposits have already assented to the rehabilitation plan of the Parsons-Satterlee committee and that the present Directors had finally sent in their resignations, making possible the immediate consideration by the Voting Trustees of the long list of new Directors and officers tentatively selected by the committee. Justice Clarke granted a further extension of two weeks in which to get full assents to the resumption.
Later a cheerful appeal, and at the same time a warning, from Mark Twain to the backward depositors was made public by Attorney Herbert L. Satterlee, counsel to the depositors’ committee.
Mark Twain, who has something like $50,000 tied up in the company, has already sent in his assent to the plan. He is afraid that enough of the others will stay out to hold up the reorganization and leave the company to the mercies of a permanent receivership, which he says would be more expensive than a harem. His letter read: [See Jan. 17 for letter].
Isabel Lyon’s journal: A long crazy heedless kind of day as far as I’m concerned, but full of the goodness of life where the King is concerned. Mrs. Mother Hapgood came in & talked a good deal about Mrs. Clemens & poor Jean, & the way she was criticised in Dublin when no one knew of her incriminating malady. I was terribly tired. The King slept a lot. Mrs. Littleton telephoned over to say they were sending some extra large oysters from the Manhattan Club for the King for his dinner, and when I asked him if they were good, he said, “No, they looked and tasted like a foetus.” Dear wonderful original King [MTP: IVL TS 10-11].
Dorothy Quick wrote to Sam. “I received your telegram yesterday I am so sorry you are sick too, did you have to miss the matinee too. I hope I can come next Saturday” [MTP; not in MTAq].
January 19 Sunday ca. – Kate Douglas Riggs (aka Wiggin) wrote to Sam, heading the note,
“Acceptance to Mark Twain’s Doe-Luncheon No 2 / February 11th 1908 / Air: ‘Believe me if all those endearing young charms!” and drawing a musical scale, followed by 8 lines of poetry, followed by this note: “N.B. A lady who is invited to, and attends, a Doe Luncheon, is of course, a Doe! The question is, if she attends two doe-luncheons in succession is she a doe- doe? If so she is extinct—and can never be asked to a third” [MTP].