February 6 Sunday – At the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Austria, Sam added to his Feb. 5 letter to Rogers after receiving one from him
Your letter has arrived! [not extant.] And you’ve crucified the Bank, sure enough! I shake you by the hand! and am your obligedest and humblest servant. Now it’s plain sailing. I still owe the Bank (after this $6,612.42 is paid) fairly and squarely about $6,000, more, and that I will pay, a little at a time, at my leisure. When they prove to me that they never collected the $9,000 false notes, I will pay that, too. But the burden of proof is upon them—they must do the proving, themselves. And I don’t quite know how they will do it: for Hall and his book-keeper cooked a false statement of the Webster assets and liabilities once and played it off on me; and another time Hall deceived me and got my name on $15,000 of new Mt. Morris notes, allowing [me] to believe I was endorsing the old ones—therefore the testimony of those two has no value for me.
Sam also wanted the George Barrow & Son claim paid in full but no interest, since there were sisters involved “in sharp need of the money.”
I thought I was going to finish this letter, this time, but no—there’s some company—ladies—and I must put on my shirt and go and see them. (This is Mrs. Clemens’s idea; she is particular about clothes) [MTHHR 317-9]. Note: $6,612.46 was the amount compromised by Rogers after the Mt. Morris Bank had offered $6,750 to settle their claim of $27,864.46 in a Jan. 22 1898 letter to Rogers. See source p. 320-1 for a full accounting.
Sam also wrote to Arthur E. Gilbert, who evidently had written (not extant) asking if he might name a pipe after Mark Twain. Sam responded that he liked the idea:
“A health-protecting pipe is substantially a life-boat—with a limitless field for its benevolences. I have not heard of any person who would object to having a life-boat named for him.”
After this note he added another marked “Private” suggesting that Gilbert’s apparatus to clean the pipe should be sold with the pipes, and that good pipes should be sold in Vienna. “They advertise good pipes, but when you want one, they are always out” [MTP]. Note: Following Gilbert’s name are the initials A.I.E.E., which likely stand for the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (now IEEE) from 1884- 1963. No further information on Gilbert was found but Sam replied again to another non-extant letter on Feb. 12. This quick turnaround of mail would rule out Gilbert being in the US.