August 17 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Charles Webster. Evidently Webster had recommending closing up the Kaolatype business, but Sam poured good money after bad.

You wish to know when I shall “close up?” When the business pays me $5,000 a year clear profit. Not before. The brass alone shall pay me more than that, before I am done with it….

Yes, it will cost some money to make it pay—but it shall pay. I shall retain the privilege of complaining over the money-drain; a privilege which I seldom exercise, whereas any other man would abuse it [MTBus 165].

Orion Clemens wrote to his brother that he’d finished his autobiography at 2,346 MS. pages. He asked for any letters to Livy or Sam that he might want to send [MTP].

J.J. Doyle wrote from the San Jose, Calif. jail to Clemens, enclosing an essay for July the 4th he’d written in the San Jose Daily Mercury. He was writing asking for aid for Jerome Settle, who he claimed was the son of Caroline Clemens, sister to John Marshall Clemens; no such Settle is listed in genealogy charts [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “Mention of the humbug Earl of Durham (T.P. Leathers.)” The man’s name was Jesse M. Leathers.

Joe Twichell wrote to Clemens, but the “dark mood in Washington” (Garfield) took his desire to write away. He “was sending a periodical containing an article by our friend Lt. Wood” [MTP].