December 2 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Howells, asking to be reminded should Webster forget to send the $2,000 that Howells had requested. Sam made reference to “these first days of publication” of Grant’s Memoirs and gave specific shipping numbers—another argument for Dec. 1 being the correct publication date.

I’ve got the first volume launched safely; consequently half of the suspense is over, & I am that much nearer the goal. We’ve bound & shipped 200,000 books; & by the 10th shall finish & ship the remaining 125,000 of the first edition. I got nervous & came down to help hump-up the binderies; & I mean to stay here pretty much all the time till the first days of March, when the second volume will issue [MTP].

Note: See Dec. 5 for Howells’ answer.

In the evening Sam “stopped at Laffan’s a moment…where Osgood was dining; then went up to Mrs. Grant’s.” General Grant’s sons were there admiring a stack of the volume 1 in various bindings [Dec. 3 to Livy, MTP].

MTP copy of stock certificate to Olivia L. Clemens for 813 shares of J. Langdon and Co., “organized in Pennsylvania” shares valued at $100 each (value $81,300) dated this day [MTP: 1885 financial file].

Henry Guy Carlton (not Cashton) wrote on Lotos Club notepaper asking if Sam had “time and inclination to tackle a play dealing wth American life, not as Dickens assumed it to be, but as it is?” [MTP].