January 4 Friday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Richard Malcolm Johnston (sometimes reported as simply Malcom Johnston). Sam addressed him as “Colonel” and thanked him for his “good letter” of Jan. 2. Fatout writes,

“When the wife of Thomas Nelson Page died suddenly, Mark Twain substituted for him in Baltimore. Also on the program was Malcom Johnson, to whom Mark Twain gave all the receipts for the evening” [MT Speaking 658]. (Editorial emphasis.)

Sam said he was “unspeakably sorry for poor Page,” and “in an emergency like this I am cheerfully ready to break all the promises I have made that I would infest the public platform no more.” Sam planned to leave New York for Baltimore about 10 a.m. on Jan. 17, and would telegraph him before leaving (he actually left on Jan. 16). The Baltimore event was a benefit reading to help Page. Sam thought the 110 minutes allotted on the program between he and Johnston should be split about in half with the performance alternating several times between the two [MTP]. See Sam’s follow up Jan. 9.

Sam’s notebook carried an entry probably this day for Baltimore, Thursday, Jan. 17, and the intention to return to New York on Jan. 18 to attend a dinner at Moretti’s Restaurant with William Dean Howells and his literary circle [MTNJ 3: 441n114-5].

Webster & Co. wrote to Sam that the Grant family had compromised “the old differences” [MTLTP 252n1].