April 14 Saturday – The N.Y. Times noted that the steamship New York’s arrival was a “fast winter run of 6 days, 21 hours, and 51 minutes.” Sam’s arrival was noted [Apr. 15, p.9 “Arrivals from Europe”].

At 5 p.m. in New York at the Players Club, Sam wrote to Livy that he’d arrived at 10 a.m. and found his old room ready for him at 10:30 a.m.

I was at Brander Matthews’s at 11, and delivered the box of keys & saw him & his wife & told him what I could of his mother & sister. He said the selling of Roxy down the river is very strong, & the strongest piece of writing I have ever done. [Roxy of PW]

By half past 11 I was at Dr. Rice’s. Mrs. Rice says the electric treatment has made her a whole woman again. …

I took a mid-day dinner there, then went out to Mr. Rogers’s. Mrs. Rogers was sitting up — in the library — but she only got up yesterday; has been ill in bed twice, lately. She hopes Mrs. Duff & Miss May will leave the Chatham & go to the Brighton…Mrs. Rogers hopes Susy will come home with Mrs. Duff, but I said you would be too uneasy with an ocean between you & Susy. I was there an hour….Mr. Rogers is in Fairhaven, but will be back on Monday.

Then I stepped around & spent a good while with Howells, & saw Pilla, who is very pretty. I told them how you all admired John [Mead Howells] and considered him a dear.

Sam wished Livy was at the Players with him; his room looked out on big trees and was “profoundly quiet” [MTP].

Sam “ran across” Poultney Bigelow twice. Bigelow had been in Paris, and he had just sent up a copy of Truth for April 5 with the article “Notes from Paris” by a Mrs. Crawford [Apr. 15 to Livy].

In the evening a N.Y. Sun reporter managed a short interview, which ran the next day on page five:

Mr. S.L. Clemens, known to more people as Mark Twain, got back from Europe yesterday [Apr. 14] on the steamship New York, and is now at the Players Club. He said to a Sun reporter last night:

“I went abroad to see how my family were getting along, and not for the benefit of my own health, as has been reported. My wife has not been well for some time, and she is now under the care of a physician in Paris. I wanted to see for myself just how she was, and that’s the reason I went. I found her to be very much improved, and that’s why I didn’t stay longer. I’ve been gone only three weeks, so you see I didn’t have much of a visit. But the trip was a glorious one. The voyage back, particularly, was delightful. I hear you’d had a great storm here, but at sea we had nothing of it. The New York encountered no bad weather, and only on one day a rough sea, which seemed more like the wash from another steamer than anything else. I shall return to Paris again in just three weeks, to take my family to Aix-les-Bains. Baths are part of the treatment prescribed for my wife.” [Scharnhorst 143].