June 7 Friday – Sam wrote from New York to “my oldest friend,” Will Bowen in Hannibal.

“We leave tomorrow at 3:00 P.M. Everything is ready but my trunks. I will pack them first thing in the morning. We have got a crowd of tiptop people, & shall have a jolly, sociable, homelike trip of it for the next five or six months” [MTL 2: 54].

On this same day Sam wrote to his mother and family in St. Louis. This letter contains evidence that Sam visited Dan Slote’s house before leaving New York. Sam teased his mother:

I haven’t got anything to write, else I would write it. I have just written myself clear out in letters to the Alta, & I think they are the stupidest letters that were ever written from New York.
…
An importing house sent me two cases of exquisite champaign aboard the ship for me to-day—Veuve Cliquot & Lac d’Or. I & my room-mate have set apart every Saturday as a solemn fast-day, wherein we will entertain no light matters or frivolous conversation, but only get drunk….(that is a joke) [MTL 2: 57].

Sam expressed wishes that Orion could go with him on the trip,

“For I believe with so many months of freedom from business cares he could not help but be cheerful & jolly”[MTL 2: 57].

Sam also wrote to Frank Fuller. This note should be compared with June 1 and 8 of 1867 to Fuller. In full:

“Frank Fuller Esq / You are hereby authorized to collect all moneys to me from the publication of my book, ‘The Jumping Frog,’ & receipt for the same. Particulars will be found in my former note. / My mothers address is 1312 Chestnut street, St Louis / Yrs Truly, / Mark Twain” [MTP].

Powers: “After finishing these letters, Sam Clemens left his hotel room for a night of Washoe-style
dining and drinking with friends and newspaper editors—a nine-hour bender” [MT A Life 196].