February 2 Thursday – Isabel Lyon’s Journal: “Colonel Harvey is here. Mr. Clemens creeps about the house a little, but mostly he stays in bed. Mother comes over every day to sit in my little warm room. Bambino Bronchitis Clemens grows ever better as a cat” [MTP: TS 39]. Note: “Bambino” for short.

Isabel Lyon’s journal #2: “Miss Clemens is now well enough to read. I sent down for Plato and the Iliad & Byron. She has gained 5 ½ pounds, and is allowed to sit up a little while each day” [MTP TS 4].

William Evarts Benjamin wrote to Sam recommending that $75 be sent to H.C. Griffin of Tarrytown, the attorney who assisted in the encroachment matter of the Trolley Co.on Sam’s property there [MTP].

Kate C. Lampton wrote to Clemens.

Dear Cousin Sam / I am so sorry to annoy you with another letter, but in the one I wrote New Years I enclosed my references. As they are all I have to help me get any kind of work I have to trouble you to return them. / Don’t think I am too many kinds of a nuisance bothering you again. With best wishes for you and yours / Your Affectionate Cousin …[MTP]. Note: Ella Lampton’s daughter; see Vol I for a few entries.

Samuel E. Moffett wrote on Collier’s Weekly letterhead to report a “snag” in his attempts for “information about copyrights,” as “no entries of any kind were made in his office before July 10 1870, and no statistics of original entries and renewals before June 1901.” He supposed the earlier ones were “scattered among the various district courts, and probably none of them are classified” [MTP]. Note: also see Feb. 1 from Solberg.

February 2, ca. – Isabel V. Lyon wrote responding for Sam to Arthur Newall’s Jan. 24 inquiry about obtaining a copy of 1601, writing on the bottom of Newall’s letter: “Mr. Clemens still has no copy & in every case where he thought he was on the track of one it failed—” [MTP].