September 16 Monday – Clara Spaulding Stanchfield invested $5,000 in the Paige typesetter; she was to receive a five-dollar royalty on each machine sold or rented; Sam increased this to six dollars [MTNJ 3: 277n174; 521&n128].

Sam’s notebook: [chk#] 4410 RR. fares, Sept. 16, $33 [3: 492].

These paid railroad fares suggest this was the day the Clemens family left Quarry Farm for New York and home. Sam’s Sept. 13 to Whitmore estimated the family would be back in Hartford by Sept. 19, so this day is a good estimate, allowing a day or two stay in New York, probably at the Murray Hill Hotel, which was the family’s preferred stop due to its proximity to the rail station.

George Standring wrote from London to Sam:

Yours of the 9th August duly came to hand, and is treasured with the rest. I have not breathed a word of the contents, or shown a line of the three letters wh I have of yours on the private & confidential racket. And I won’t till you say, Let fly! / I sent you a day or two ago a copy of the Printer’s Register wh will show you that the Linotype didn’t “unload” worth a damn. “The guileless British public” (your own words, me lord) is not such a fool as you imagined, and Stilson Hutchings [sic] must feel pretty sick & disgusted now [MTP].

Charles Ethan Davis wrote to Sam estimating they’d have the machine running by Tuesday night — “one slight defect” had delayed matters [MTP].