April 29 Wednesday – The Clemens party was at sea aboard the Arundel Castle bound for South Africa. In FE Sam waxed eloquent about the 4,700 ton ship, captained by R.W. Winder [Philippon 14]:

The Arundel Castle is the finest boat I have seen in these seas. She is thoroughly modern, and that statement covers a great deal of ground. She has the usual defect, the common defect, the universal defect, the defect that has never been missing from any ship that ever sailed — she has imperfect beds. Many ships have good beds, but no ship has very good ones [ch LXIV 630].

The ship passed the Isle de Bourbon (now Réunion), about 130 miles southwest of Mauritius, and though not dated, Sam’s FE entry at 8 a.m. would have been this day, one day out of Port Louis:

8 A.M. Passing Isle de Bourbon. Broken-up sky-line of volcanic mountains in the middle. Surely it would not cost much to repair them, and it seems inexcusable neglect to leave them as they are [FE ch LXIV 630].

H.H. Rogers wrote to Sam, saying since his Apr. 12 letter he’d not heard from him. He wasn’t sure he was making progress with Harper & Bros. and the Bliss brothers. He was leaving Sunday for the oil fields for a couple of weeks. This morning he received a check from Frank Mayo for $1,457.87 as royalties on the PW play through Apr. 11; Rogers enclosed Mayo’s letter, saying the play was “an assured success.” Mayo had been touring with the play from Pittsburgh to Kansas City to San Francisco. Rogers also wrote of progress with the creditors — all but two:

At last the Grant case is settled and Colby is going on now to close up the affairs of the C.L. Webster & Co. Payne [Mt. Morris Bank] and Barrow are the stubborn ones and we are unable to make settlement with them. The only thing to do is to let the matter rest for a time and hope for something favorable to turn up in the future [MTHHR 211]. Note: George Barrow represented the Barrow family, to which Webster & Co. owed $15,416.90; William H. Payne was president of the Mt. Morris Bank.