May 1 Wednesday – At the Hotel Brighton, Paris, France Sam wrote to Miss Goodridge, declining an invitation for Livy and him to dine on May 3. He pled being “gout-smitten once more, not able to put my foot to the floor all this day,” and he doubted what his condition would be by then. Another engagement also entered into his decision:

I have to go to see Mr. Mapes’s play to-morrow night if I possibly can; & if I do I shall be in pain & in crippled shape next day, I suppose & unfit for dining & cheerfulness [MTP]. Note: Miss Goodridge’s identity was not determined.

Sam also wrote to James B. Pond, who evidently had sent him press notices on Frank Mayo’s performances of PW. Pond would manage the North American leg of Sam’s world tour.

Thanks for the press notices; they are very splendid. Frank Mayo has done a very great thing for both of us; for he has proved himself a gifted dramatist as well as a gifted actor, & has enabled me to add another new character to American drama. I hope he will have grand success.

Sam then announced he’d contracted with Robert Sparrow Smythe of Melbourne to manage the tour there, and also shared the shift in his thinking about lecturing in America prior to sailing for Australia:

I’ve a notion to read a few times in America before I sail for Australia. I’m going to think it over & make up my mind. We expect to reach the Everett House before noon May 17.

I am offered a press-banquet send-off in London for May 10, but am so crowded with things to do that I was obliged to decline. Haven’t a single hour to spare. / Yrs Ever / Mark [MTP].

Note: this information no doubt led Pond to offer services as Sam’s manager as far as Vancouver, B.C. 

Sam also wrote to H.H. Rogers about a good review he’d received from Mary Mapes Dodge for the PW play. He was going to send it to Frank Mayo but wanted Rogers to see it, and ask if Rogers would send it on to Mayo. Sam often remarked that the opinion of friends was more valuable than that of critics. He mentioned the offer of a London send-off and his decline, owing to the “superintending & obstructing while Mrs. C. does the work” of getting ready to travel. Sam felt the publicity from the send off would be “wasted & the public interested in some newer thing long before we got started from the Pacific coast” [MTHHR 145]. Note: In his notebook about this time Sam wrote about a gentleman just back from India who,

…told Mary Mapes Dodge those people claim to know all about America till you corner and sift them with questions; then it turns out that they know just 3 things about it and no more: “George Washington, Mark Twain, and the Chicago Fair.” What’s the gratefullest compliment ever paid me? Why the above [MTHHR 145n1; NB 35 TS 12].