May 20 Wednesday – In Johannesburg, S. Africa Sam began a letter to Livy he added to on May 21.

Livy darling I love you, & that is about all I can find time to say this morning. I am driven — driven — driven — & without you to save me from blunders I make them all the time. I think I have engaged myself to lunch with 2 different crowds at 1 o’clock today. This would not have happened if you had been there….A visitor is announced [MTP].

Sam lunched at Mrs. Adele Chapin’s with a dozen others. He wrote of it in his May 22 to daughter Clara:

…she sprung a toast on me, & I required her to re-word it & put in something that I could use as a text — then I went ahead & made a speech — & not a bad one, if I do say that should. Nearly as good a one as I made at the Club here the other day. Only this latter was humorous, whereas the former was wholly serious [MTP]. Note: speech listed by Fatout, MT Speaking 664.

Sam gave his No. 3 “At Home” talk to a full house at Standard Theatre. In his May 21 to Livy he judged the lecture “came out just as handsomely as the others,” though he’d dreaded giving the No. 3. After the lecture the theater manager bought Sam and Smythe dinner. Sam was in bed by 1 a.m. [Philippon 16].

L.F. Austin’s article, “At Random,” ran in Sketch (London) 54, p.140. Austin briefly describes Sam at the Tile Club in N.Y. with Frank Millet, Henry Cuyler Bunner and F. Hopkinson Smith [Tenney ALR supplement to the Reference Guide (Autumn, 1977) 331].