February 1 Friday – Sam’s Feb. 2 letter to the Alta California referred to the prior night’s visit to the Century Club. (the letter ran in the Mar. 28 Alta.)

By permission, I visited the Century Club last night. The most unspeakably respectable Club in the United States, perhaps. It was storming like everything, and I thought there would necessarily be a small attendance, but this was not the case; the reading and supper rooms were crowded, and with the distinguished artists, authors and amateurs of New York. I averaged the heads, and they went three sizes larger than the style of heads I have been accustomed to. In one of the smaller rooms they averaged best—thirteen heads out of the twenty-seven present were what I choose to call prodigious. I never felt so subjugated in my life. And I was never so ashamed of wearing an 8 1/4 before [Schmidt].