October 7 Friday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Chatto & Windus. He acknowledged payment of £874.16.9 from Moncure Conway, for which he sent thanks. This amount was for A Tramp Abroad royalties [MTNJ 2: 401n157]. Sam added:

I told my nephew, C.L. Webster, to write & ask you if you wanted duplicates of the brass stamps which are to be used in printing the covers of the “P.& P.” But you need not answer him, for I perceive the time is too short, now. The suggestion was only born of personal vanity, since these stamps were made by a process of my own invention, whose merits are cheapness & celerity of production [MTNJ 2: 401n154].

Sam also wrote to Stephen C. Massett:

Am sorry, but the latch string is hauled in for repairs. The house is in the hands of the carpenters & decorators for the season, & no visitors received but the butcher & the grocer.

In regards to a squib someone had given Massett, thinking Sam had written it, he replied:

I think you must have known at a glance that the writer of that silly & witless production carries on his shoulders a gourd full of rotten oysters in place of brains [MTP]. Note: see Massett’s Oct. 9 reply.

Sam also wrote to Charles Webster with advice about testing some new base of Webster’s in use with brass and clay castings. Sam wrote that he also telegraphed Webster, “to Fredonia, to-day, to pay Dean $1100 or $1200 if you want to, & that will fetch him” [MTP]. (Dean is not further identified.)