July 22 Wednesday – In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to Margery H. Clinton at 39 E. 57   N.Y.C.

Madam: Favor of date 21st rec’d & contents noted. In reply to same would say, place such as desired by you is at your disposal, & will be kept open—at all times, both winter & summer— to be occupied at your convenience, with or without notice of your coming. Desire to call attention to fact that establishment is non-union. Factory hours, 8.30 a.m. to 10 p.m., with reasonable intervals for meals; after 10, over-time allowed, at advance of 20 per cent. Washing done on premises, meals served in room without extra charge. N. B. Tipping not permitted, except in case of Bishop of Benares, & then only when looking after baggage.

Terms & conditions as above stated. Hoping same will meet with approval, & same confirmed by early reply, am

Resp’ly

S L. Clemens

Asst. Manager

Dear Miss Margery:

Your going silenced a most pleasant note in the melody of this house’s atmosphere. Restore it. Restore it as often as you can. Your presence is a benefaction. One does not have to lie awake trying to think up ways to entertain you & keep you from getting homesick, you cause no anxieties & solicitudes, you are as unburdensome as the sunlight & the summer air. Your visit was a great pleasure, a continuous & unbroken pleasure & we want it repeated, & repeated, & repeated.

Affectionately, … [MTP]. Note: see note in guestbook dated Dec. 28  (in July 18 entry) about Margery wanting a “job” as plumber.

Sam also wrote to William Dean Howells.

Dear Howells— / Thank you once more for introducing me to the incomparable Pink Marsh. I have been reading him again, after this long interval, & my admiration of the book has overflowed all limits, all frontiers. I have personally known each of the characters in the book & can testify that they are all true to the facts, & as exact as if they had been drawn to scale. And how effortless is the limning! it is as if the work did itself, without help of the master’s hand.

And for once—just this once—the illustrator is the peer of the writer. The writer flashed a character onto his page in a dozen words, you turn the leaf & there he stands, alive & breathing, with his clothes on & the African odor oozing out of him! What a picture-gallery it is, of instantly recognizable, realizable, unassailable Authentics!

Pink—oh, the shiftless, worthless lovable black darling! Howells, he deserves to live forever. / Mark [MTHL 2: 832].

Note: Pink Marsh was the protagonist in a book by that title (1897) by George Ade; Howells admired Ade’s early writing. The illustrator was John Tinney McCutcheon (1870-1949), political cartoonist, known as the “Dean of American Cartoonists.” He worked at the Chicago Tribune from 1903 until retirement in 1946. He won the Pulitzer for Cartoons in 1932. See also Gribben p.11 on Ade.

Sam’s new guestbook:  

Name Address Date Remarks

Dan Beard       á [New York] July 22

Beatrice Alice Beard “        “  “    “

Clemens acquired two cases of Queen Anne whisky. He wrote, “2 cases—24 bot. In 40 days— up to” and then continued with the Aug 31 entry [L-A MS]. Note: see June 8, 1907 for the full list of acquisition dates of whisky, intended as ammunition against Isabel Lyon.