March 6 Thursday – Sam wrote from the Normandy Hotel in Paris to Elisha Bliss after receiving his letter. The “old dead” contract signed years before about the Riley book was not canceled and Sam wanted the matter resolved. Bliss reported that the subscription sales for the new book (A Tramp Abroad) were going well, and Sam was gratified since the family’s expenses in Paris were “something perfectly gaudy.” Sam also wrote:

“…six days hence an artist a mile from here on top of the hill of Montmartre will yield up his studio to me until my book shall be finished—& on that day I will buckle in on my book again” [MTLE 4: 34]. Note: The artist in question was Francis Davis Millet, who was getting married on Mar. 11(See entry).

Sam also wrote to Mary Mason Fairbanks, who evidently had recently related difficulties her husband faced. Sam apologized for not writing. He had written from Munich to his “Fredonia mother & began a letter to” his “Elmira mother,” but had only “got the steam going for an intended letter to” Mary. He expected to “work six days in the week here, uninterruptedly for the next 2 or 2½ months.” Sam told Mary about discovering in Munich he was only a third done with the book instead of half, and of spending his last Sunday there for a holiday, writing 60 pages of letters. He encouraged Mary’s son Charley to compete in the illustrations for the new book, and to send them directly to Bliss. Sam wrote his children “glibly” spoke German, and of the high price of wood ($5 a basket) and of his guests for the evening:

“We’re expecting Frank D. Millet, a very dear young artist friend of ours here, every moment, to dinner, with the lovely girl he is to marry next Tuesday—with I & 3 friends as witnesses, & Livy & Clara S. & I & 6 or 8 more will eat the wedding breakfast in his studio” [MTLE 4: 37].

Christian Tauchnitz wrote to Sam. “I shall of course, agree with your wishes,” putting IA in two volumes so as not to compete with the Routledge edition, also in two [MTP].