July 6 Friday – Sam finished the letter to Howells he began on July 4. He’d completed the play, a four-act comedy with fourteen characters—all done in “6 ½ days working 6 ½ hours per day.”

I go to New York Monday (St. James Hotel,) & take MS with me. Shall visit theatres for a week or ten days & see if I can find a man who can play the detective as well as Sol Smith Russell could doubtless have done it—though I have never seem him. If the play’s a success it is worth $50,000 or more—if it fails it is worth nothing—& yet even the worst of failures can’t rob one of the 6 ½ days of booming pleasure I have had in writing it [MTLE 2: 90]. Note: Sam was not only stage-struck, but counting his chickens quite large.

Charles T. Parsloe wrote to Sam that O.R. Thorne of the Lyceum had “read the piece and offers to get it up with everything new and share after Twenty two hundred dollars per week. Terms are a little steep I think but it is the only place in the city to be had.” Parsloe had another offer in St. Louis and gave details, though “the company is sure to be bad because Ben DeBar is the manager” [MTP]. Note: Benedict (“Ben”) DeBar (1812-1877), connected by marriage to the Booth actors, and a prominent stage manager in St. Louis. As an actor, DeBar was best known for portraying Shakespeare’s character John Falstaff in Henry IV.

Charles E. Perkins wrote a notice of interest and his fee [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env “Interest ac/ Send him $100 Livy”