January 6 Saturday – In New York Sam wrote two notes to Frederick J. Hall. In the first:

I think I will go to Elmira tomorrow and distribute some stock to people who are anxious to get it. I expect to get back Monday night. If I don’t & the bank is stubborn, go to Mr. Rogers…

[Note: MTLTP 361n1: “Perhaps to Susan Crane, who had offered MT $5,000 in stocks and bonds the preceding fall”; See LLMT, p.270.]

Sam hoped that Rogers could hold off the Mt. Morris Bank; evidently more notes were soon due. Sam also asked Hall to “Get promptly to work” to put a partnership into place with George Barrow for some new capital for Webster & Co. He felt he would leave for Europe soon. MTLTP 362n3: “This may be the George Barrow who had loaned FJH $15,000.”

In his second note he directed Hall to tell Orion that his monthly check would be reduced to $50 “till the stringency is over” and that he should stop sending $10 to Missouri (to Puss Quarles). He repeated he would leave in the morning for Elmira and return Monday night (Jan. 8).

In the evening Sam attended the Twelfth Night Club’s Annual Feast. The New York Times of Jan. 7, p.2 wrote of the gathering and included Sam among those present:

The Twelfth Night Club celebrated its annual feast with all the rites and ceremonies of ye olden times.

One of the reception rooms at the Berkeley Lyceum was metamorphosed into an inn of a century or more ago. The walls were hung with holly and evergreens, arranged by the fair fingers of the Twelfth Night maids and matrons. …

At the stroke of 12 the President of the club, Mrs. Alice Fischer Harcourt, sounded the gong, the loving cup was passed impressively from one member to another, there were mutual congratulations, and the feast was over.

Orion Clemens wrote to Sam thanking for a $50 check received the day before, and enclosing “some MS. To show you that I am trying to substitute something that will pay for your publishing business….” He also praised the second installments in the Century and in St. Nicholas. One page of the MS survives with the letter, and is a summary of John Marshall Clemens’ struggle, titled “Jesus Bar Abbas” [MTP].