December 9 Sunday – At 169 rue de l’Université in Paris, Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers, responding to his Nov. 30 letter.

Yours of Nov. 30 has just arrived. I shall welcome the Kipling poem. There were good things in Riley’s book, but you have noticed, of course, that there’s considerable padding in it, too.

Sam discussed Watson Gill’s request to re-publish books from the now-defunct Webster & Co. (see Oct. 19 entry), and advised, “Gill is an excellent man to handle books, and is prompt pay,” but he also conveyed Livy’s hesitation to put the books in Gill’s “hands in any way that could hamper or defeat the Uniform Edition planned, and that they wanted to gain the release of the Mississippi articles from Gill, which he felt $700 could do. He added family matters, and a change of mind about the rental house:

I am feeling in better shape yesterday and to-day….If this family were in a hotel, now, or in a flat, I would take the next ship for New York, for I see you believe that would be well. But here we are, in this private little house, with two stories, eight staircases, no end of cells and passages, and little or no room. It was built by an idiot, I think. There is but one bedroom on our floor. All other bedrooms are far away, and one couldn’t make anybody hear if one were in trouble. We have French servants whom we know little or nothing about. The man-servant is sometimes impudent — in manner, not words — and I guess he’ll have to go, before long, though he is alert and capable, and another stranger admitted.

Sam noted Rogers’ opinion that the Chicago Herald would not give a final favorable opinion of the Paige typesetter, and listed what-ifs should Rogers give a final decision to withdraw from the Paige Compositor Co. After his signature Sam noted that “a Boston house” was advertising a new edition of IA and wondered if that copyright was “imperfect” [MTHHR 103-5]. Note: the Boston house was The Joseph Knight Co., advertising a two-volume edition, “fully illustrated with thirty photogravure illustrations” [n4].

Sam also wrote to Frank Bliss, enclosing a printed advertisement about the above edition by The Joseph Knight Co.

What does this mean? Was our copyright non-completed? Or has it run out?

Sam wondered if Elisha Bliss, Frank’s late father had failed to register two copies with the Library of Congress [MTP].

Sam also wrote, Livy dictating, a short note to Watson Gill, answering his letter (enclosed) to H.H. Rogers. Gill had inquired as to the terms he might get from Mrs. Clemens for the right to re-publish Sam’s books by the now-defunct Webster & Co. Sam answered that Bainbridge Colby, attorney with Stern & Rushmore, had all the details in a letter Sam had sent “some time ago”; he asked Gill to confer with Colby [MTP].