December 27 Saturday – Sam wrote from New York City to Livy, with news about Charles and Ida Langdon, and also the Cranes, who were in the city:

I called & saw Ida, but the children were already abed, I judge, as it was about 9. Charley was gone over the river to meet Ida’s sister, so I did not get a chance at him. Ida said Charley was feeling pretty fine, to-day, & so she herself was in good spirits…I was sorry to have cut my visit short & see so little of her; but I must get up at 7 in the morning. Sue is at the Murray Hill with a heavy sick headache; if I had only known she & Theodore were there I would have stopped as I passed by from the station [MTP].

The Critic, in “The Lounger,” described the reading where George W. Cable did not have Sam there to introduce him; the editor continued that Cable had profited as a story-teller by exposure to Sam [Tenney, Supplement American Literary Realism, Autumn 1980 p171].

The London Athenæum  praised HF:

For some time past Mr. Clemens has been carried away by the ambition of seriousness and fine writing. In Huckleberry Finn he returns to his right mind, and is again the Mark Twain of old time. It is such a book as he, and he only, could have written. It is meant for boys; but there are few men (we should hope) who, once they take it up, will not delight in it [Budd, Reviews 259].

Estes & Lauriat per Dana Estes wrote to Clemens: “Will you please interview our Mr. J.F. Gallier for a few minutes. I feel sure he will show you something which will interest you, and I will guarantee he will go when you tell him to, without the intervention of a big dog, or the use of a shot gun” [MTP].