December 7 Saturday – Sam and Carlyle Smythe traveled from New Plymouth back to Wanganui, a ten-hour trip by train. They stopped at Hawera an hour and a half where they ate lunch at the hotel. Advertisements advised people in Wellington that Sam’s performance had been changed from Monday to Tuesday, Dec. 10. In Wanganui (due to Smythe missing the fine lines of print in the RR schedule), Sam was reunited with Livy and Clara [Shillingsburg, “Down Under” 29; NB 34 TS 41-2].

H.H. Rogers wrote to Sam, but the letter did not reach him until Feb. 7, 1896 in Calcutta. It is not extant but is referred to in Sam’s Feb. 8, 1896 to Rogers, and Sam’s response then reveals at least some of the content.