November 25 Friday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Elinor Howells, who evidently wrote that her husband was ill and confined to bed:

“Dear Mrs. Howells— / How you startle me! Can a man so near by, fall sick, & linger along, & approach death, & a body never hear of it?…I supposed Howells went to Toronto the 20th, & that he would fetch around & join Osgood & me in Montreal three or four days from now” [MTHL 1: 379].

Sam left hearth and home and went to Boston where he stayed the night [MTNJ 2: 403n165]. He did not “look in on” Howells, as he’d written “Doubtless visitors would be an incumbrance, now…” [MTHL 1: 379]. The address he wrote to Webster: in care of James R. Osgood, 211 Tremont Street [MTBus 178].

Charles Webster wrote to Sam, “too confounded sensitive for anything.” Webster had not found Dean Sage but didn’t know it was “so important.” Sage often dealt in stocks for and with Clemens, so this explains Sam’s urgency. Webster reported he’d “perfected” the English patent on Kaolatype for 3 or 4 more years. More Kaolatype details [MTP].