July 26 Sunday – Jean Clemens’ eleventh birthday.

In the last letter extant from Aix-les-Bains, France, Sam wrote to Frederick J. Hall requesting duplicates of statements sent to him as well as to Whitmore. Things were looking up a bit, as Sam remarked on the last statement he received:

The business does indeed look very very handsome & most promising. It has just about doubled during the year. …I have begun to write a little, but shall probably have to stop again, my hand is so bad. We all send you warm regards [MTLTP 280].

Note: Sam wrote his first letter for McClure from Aix-les-Bains — if not completed there at least begun. This letter, titled “Paradise of Rheumatics,” or “Mark Twain at Aix-les-Bains” was published on Nov. 8 in the Chicago Tribune and the St. Louis Dispatch [Camfield citing Budd’s Europe and Elsewhere]. Since the six Europe letters were syndicated by McClure, they appeared in several newspapers. Several sources make the mistake of reporting that Sam wrote them for a particular newspaper, or even the Illustrated London News (which printed five of them). These sources lists the N.Y. Sun for the same Nov. 8 date, but mistakenly say that Sam sold the six letters for the Sun, or the Illustrated London News instead of for McClure’s Syndicate, who resold them to these and other newspapers [336]. Note: Samuel McClure’s brother, Robert McClure, worked for the London paper, so reports of non-payment may have been false or a family affair.