March 5 Friday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam wrote to James Ross Clemens in London.

Your note [not extant] has just arrived this evening—it has been searching round for one for a day or two.

Your closing sentence touched me deeply, & I am very grateful for the impulse that moved you to say those generous words. I had not seen the Globe paragraph. Part of what it says is true. I am hard at work on a book, & the proceeds will go to the payment of debts contracted for me by others. But the rest is an error. My wife has a modest (but sufficient) income from property inherited from her father, & so we do not have to live in a lodging house.

Sam also expressed a desire to know James, a doctor and asked him to “drop in on Monday,” Mar. 8. “& take a cup of tea with us. I believe you are the only blood relation I have in Europe except Frau von Versen.” Sam offered his address privately [MTP]. Note: rumors in such papers would circulate in America that the Clemens family was destitute and Sam was dying in a London hovel.

Sam also wrote to H.H. Rogers after receiving his cable “Signed,” (not extant) referring to the two contracts, worked out by Rogers in Dec. 1896, which provided for a working relationship between Frank Bliss and Henry J. Harper about their separate uniform edition issues and the satisfaction of Charles Dudley Warner’s rights in GA :

…I can’t tell you how glad I am. It is like a new start in life. It takes a great deal to stir me up now, but this has done it. I am ever, ever so much obliged to you. You are the best friend a man ever had, & the surest.

I‘ll start Bliss to getting a renewal of the Innocents, copyright, now. And also I will presently have a business-talk with Chatto [MTHHR 266-7].

Orion Clemens added to his Feb. 28. “Mollie fainted Monday evening….Is better now.” Orion included

misc. political and church matters, and details about a law case he was handling. He also confided that Puss Quarles’ “finances are derailed again.” Orion thought Sam’s “financial troubles will sharpen” his humor and that FE would be his most interesting book. He finished the letter on Mar. 6 [MTP].