January 26 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Jim Gillis, evidently answering Jim’s letter about the good ol’ days at Angels Camp.

I mean that day we sat around the tavern stove & heard that chap tell about the frog & how they filled him with shot. And you remember how we quoted from the yarn & laughed over it, out there on the hillside while you & dear old Stoker panned & washed. I jotted the story down in my note-book that day, & would have been glad to get ten or fifteen dollars for it—I was just that blind [MTL 4: 36].

Sam also wrote James Redpath about a disputed bill:

“I am willing to pay the $100 peaceably—though I prefer to be sued if it will not discommode you too much. It is more business-like. I am to be married next week, and I have got to economise. I am not going to pay the full amount of any body’s bill” [MTL 4: 39]. Note: this is possibly due to his Brooklyn cancel; see Dec. 6, 1869.