September 14 Saturday – On or just after this day Sam responded to E.H. Butler’s letter (below) through Franklin G. Whitmore. He didn’t recall the piece Butler asked about but told Whitmore if it was a sketch he wrote it must be in Mark Twain’s Sketches, New and Old or The Stolen White Elephant [MTP]

Sam also wrote to Charles J. Langdon in New York, letter not extant but referred to as “pleasant” in Langdon’s Sept. 29 [MTP].

Sam’s notebook: [chk#] 4412. “Cash” Arnot, $300, Sept. 14. [3: 491]. Note: Matthias Hollenback Arnot (1832-1910), financier and director of Arnot mercantile holdings in Elmira, a classmate of Chauncey Depew at Yale (1856), reputed to be worth $50,000,000 at his death. However, he did not take any of the cash with him, though undoubtedly the burden of it gave rise to his nickname, used here by our Samuel Clemens. Aug. 3, 1890 to Senator John P. Jones, Sam estimated Arnot’s worth at seven million. The Arnot’s were Elmira neighbors of the Langdons.

E.H. Butler for New York Daily News wrote asking for a copy of “Mark Twain’s First Romance,” that he’d seen before — where could he buy it? Sam wrote on the letter, “Tell him I do not remember it. If a sketch, it must be in Sketches or Wh Elepht SLC” [MTP]. Note: “First Romance” and Mark Twain’s (Burlesque) Autobiography were published in 1871, not in Stolen White Elephant.

September, mid – James W. Paige announced that the typesetter was ready for testing [MTNJ 3: 479].