June 18 Thursday – In Port Elizabeth Sam wrote to Andrew Chatto that he’d seen the English edition of JA advertised in the Cape Town newspapers, and that though they’d found “very small editions” of his book in stock in India and Australasia, what they found were “easily sold out.”
We sail from Cape Town for England in the Norman (?) July 15; so I shall look in on you about Aug 1st or 2d — unless we switch off at Portsmouth & hunt up lodgings in the Isle of Wight. Sincerely [MTP].
Sam also wrote to H.H. Rogers,
Your very long delayed letters of the end of February [none from that period extant] have just arrived — via India. Honest, if I had had the selecting to do for you, I would have chosen Mrs. Hart every time; and so it has cost me not a pang to praise you up, to her, a blame sight higher than you probably deserve; for I want her to be satisfied with you.
Rogers had married Emilie Augusta Randel Hart on June 3, 1896, the former wife of Lucius R. Hart Sam also announced he was sending a few wedding presents per first vessel — to wit:
Pair of elephants;
Pair of rhinoceroses;
Pair of giraffes;
Pair of zebras;
30 yards of anacondas;
Flock of ostriches;
Herd of niggers.
The wedding-present business is expensive when you work it from Africa [MTHHR 217].
By coincidence H.H. Rogers wrote to Sam the very same day. Rogers noted he’d received Sam’s letters of May 22, Apr. 2 and 24, and May 8. He announced his marriage to Emilie Hart on June 3, and that he was on his honeymoon, so he’d not had time to wrap them up.
The affairs of C.L. Webster & Co. are now gradually drawing to a close. The accounts have been handed to the Courts and we expect to get the whole business cleaned up within 20 or 25 days. Nothing further was done with Payne or Barrow but we do not despair of getting them later on through a new lead we have found.
Rogers also related his dealings with “Those Hartford fellows,” the Bliss brothers, who were “enough to perplex a saint.” His letter was interrupted for a meeting with Frank Bliss who Rogers afterward felt had “showed more willingness to be reasonable than ever before,” though Harper & Brothers was asking too much for the printed sheets of HF, and Rogers would have to intervene if Bliss could not get the price reduced.
You understand of course that if Bliss makes the arrangement with Harper & Brothers it seems that Bliss is to be the publisher of your new book if you write one, on the terms expressed in an earlier letter which undoubtedly is before you. When the memorandum goes forward for Mrs. Clemens’ approval, I will embody the whole. / With warmest regards… [MTHHR 218-21].
Philippon reports that Mark Twain’s comments on politics and platform success were published in a Port Elizabeth Telegraph interview. Also, news reached Port Elizabeth that the Drummond Castle had gone down at sea, with the loss of 400 lives. This was a Union Castle Co. ship like the Norham Castle [21].
Sam’s notebook: Get bound vols. Of Truth [Gribben 717; NB 38 TS 49]. Note: Truth, A Weekly Journal.