April 18 Tuesday – At 8 AM, Sam, Osgood, and Phelps left New York on the Pennsylvania Railroad. They would travel through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, then St. Louis. Sam noted in the evening:

“Speaking of dress. Grace and picturesqueness drop gradually out of it as one travels away from New York” [Ch. 22, LM].

In Boston, Howells wrote a send-off letter to Sam:

I am sorry that Osgood is with you on this Mississippi trip; I foresee that it will be a contemptible half-success instead of the illustrious and colossal failure we could have made it. But we still have our chance in the Library of Humor, (unless Clark ties our hands) and what can we not hope from the Circus? [referring to Sam’s scheme of touring the country with Aldrich, Cable and himself] [MTHL 1: 403].