December 28 Saturday – Sam’s notebook entry suggests travel:

[Chk #] 4399. Dec. 28. Ticket office RR, for 2000 miles, $40 [3: 537].

John (“Jock”) Brown, son of the late Dr. John Brown, wrote to Sam from Edinburgh:

I think you will like the small book I have sent you. It is written by a Miss McLaren who knew my father very well and understood him [Gribben 444]. Note: the book was Elizabeth T. McLaren’s Dr. John Brown and His Sister Isabella: Outlines (1889). See also Jan. 25, 1890.

Orion Clemens wrote a short note of thanks to Sam for the $200 check received. He enclosed a squib of a clipping from the St. Louis Daily Constitution-Democrat for Dec. 27, which read:

A news item is to the effect that Mark Twain has spent about $100,000 in perfecting the Page [sic] type-setting machine, and he is the principal owner of the company that will manufacture them. The machine is sixteen feet long, nine feet high in the middle, and, it is claimed, will set, justify and distribute 45,000 ems of type daily [MTP].

Annie E. Trumbull wrote to thank Sam for a copy of CY, which she was “enjoying every line of” [MTP].