May 16 Friday – Mrs. Fairbanks, Livy and Clara Spaulding spent the night in Livy’s cabin on the Batavia, while Sam stayed at the St. Nicholas Hotel [MTL 5: 366n1].

Sam filed a lawsuit for an injunction and damages of $25,000 against Benjamin J. Such, who Sam had given permission to use one sketch in an advertising pamphlet. To Sam’s shock, Such had used five sketches in “the form of a book, entitled Fun, Fact and Fancy” [New York Times, June 11, 1873, p2]. Sam was probably most upset that the book included “a bit of execrable rubbish entitled ‘A Self-Made Man’,” which he did not write [MTL 5: 370n5]. Note: Simon Sterne filed the suit.

Howells sent an inscribed copy of his novel, A Chance Acquaintance (1873): “To S. L. Clemens with ever so much friendship, W. D. Howells. Cambridge, May 16, 1873” [Gribben 327; MTHL 1: 13]. Did it arrive in time to read on board the Batavia?