April 2 Tuesday – On the S.S. Paris en route to Southampton, Sam wrote to Clarence C. Buel, editor of Century Magazine.

Before I left I put in nearly a whole night trying to write something for the October number; but it was only a doubtful success, so I had to pigeonhole it for a future effort.

Sam wanted Buel to know that he hadn’t forgot his promise and that he’d done his best [MTP]. Note: The MTP reports this as Apr. 2-3; the night Sam spent trying to produce this article is not given.

In his second Apr. 3 to H.H. Rogers, Sam described this evening’s events:

The usual “concert” last night [Apr. 2]. Carnegie in the chair. Something prompted me to risk telling my dream about my trip to heaven and hell with Rev. Sam Jones and the Archbishop of Canterbury — and I did it. It was good fun — but just scandalous. When Mrs. Clemens finds it out there will be a scalp lacking in the Clemens family.

From MTHHR 136n1: In the winter of 1891-2 Clemens had written “A Singular Episode” (DV 329, MTP), an account of a dream in which Mark Twain leaves the world by celestial railroad and surreptitiously exchanges his ticket to Sheol for the sleeping archbishop’s ticket to Heaven. Clemens wrote at the top of the manuscript: “Not published — forbidden by Mrs. Clemens”

Meanwhile, in New York, H.H. Rogers wrote to Sam that he missed his company. The letter is not extant but is mentioned in Sam’s Apr. 14 to Rogers.