December 9 Monday – The Clemens party left Wanganui at 1 p.m. bound for Wellington (pop. 37,000) some 100 miles to the south; the train took nine hours, arriving at 10 p.m., too late to make his lecture appearance. Seats sold for this night were made valid for the next evening, Dec. 10, and Tuesday’s scheduled performance moved to Wednesday. Shillingsburg writes Sam had misread the express train schedule, missing the fine print that the express only ran on Tuesdays and Fridays. The party took rooms at Moeller’s Occidental Hotel in Wellington — their last stop in New Zealand. After a late supper a reporter, “R.A.L.,” of the New Zealand Mail interviewed Sam, who called him a reporter “with the urbanity of a journalist and the courtesy of the world.” It was published on Dec. 12 [Shillingsburg, “Down Under” 29; At Home 172-80].