September 28 Thursday – In New York on Webster & Co. letterhead, Sam wrote to Livy. Evidently, Livy was in transit to Paris, because Sam sent the letter in care of Drexel Harjes & Co. there, and wrote that he wondered where she was, “at Botzen, I suppose.” He pulled no punches about Webster & Co. or the economic conditions of the country:

I am well, & measurably cheerful; but it is very difficult to be cheerful in my circumstances. This concern, as you know, is in a bad way. I have been trying for three weeks to get rid of all or part of it, & so escape disaster, but thus far we have had no bid that we can accept. By hard work & much trouble I have got extensions on the most pressing debts, & this gives us a little breathing spell & a chance to look around & try further. The times are desperately hard.

The Paige typesetter concern was “at a standstill,” and Sam was grateful he didn’t have to “help run that concern. We will wait & see what happens.” He revealed that a plan was in the back of his mind, if forced to it; a plan that was as much a prophecy:

Sometimes I seem to foresee that I have got to go on the dreadful platform again. If I must, I must — but nothing short of absolute necessity will drive me. If I have to go, I would rather begin with India & Australia, & not reach the American platform till times are better. Do you think you could go with me? I do hope it will not have to be, but often it seems to me that there is going to be no other way out.

Sam blamed his and Hall’s “unspeakable stupidity” in trying to carry the LAL, a project that should have been dumped three years before.

As I have intimated, we have an offer for L.A.L. which we cannot accept. We must look around & see what we can do. …I do love you so, & it does hurt me so to send you such news when you are away off there, lonely among strangers. I love you deep deep down [LLMT 274-5].

Later in the day Sam started another letter to Livy which he finished with a PS on Sept. 30.

I have engaged to try to write an article in a great hurry, for the Cosmopolitan. I will get at it at once.

I do miss you so! Every day the separation becomes harder & harder to bear. Yet I know it must continue a good while yet for things must be straightened out here & something captured out of that type-setter if possible, & these things will take time.

Sam hoped she was happy; he told her not to get sick again, to take good care of herself [LLMT 275-6].