April 8 Friday – At the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Austria, Sam replied to an invitation (not extant) from Walter Besant. Sam would like to make the event (likely The Society of Authors, of which Besant was the founder), but he would have to write Mr. Thring that his “spring- movements” were “not prophecyable.” (Also active in the Society was G. Herbert Thring (1859-1941). It wasn’t likely he’d be in London in May or June, since Clara’s musical education would interfere.
April 7 Thursday – The front page of the Apr. 8 Illustrirtes Wiener Extrablatt displayed a drawing engulfing nearly the entire page of firemen rescuing a suicidal countess at the Hotel Metropole. Mark Twain is pictured gawking out one window [Dolmetsch 52].
April 3 Sunday – At the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote an afterthought to his Apr. 2 to Richard Watson Gilder: “P.S. / This should be the heading: / From the London Times of 1904. / The MS was mailed / before I thought of / the change. / S L C” [MTP].
April 2 Saturday – At the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Richard Watson Gilder of the Century Co., who had recently questioned American Publishing Co. giving McClure’s a segment of FE (without Sam’s knowledge) while refusing it to the Century.
April 1 Friday – An unidentified person wrote in Polish to “The Great American Humorist”; only the envelope survives [MTP].
Fatout lists an unidentified dinner where Sam gave four speeches [MT Speaking 665]. Note: Fatout gives no particulars and none were found.
March 31 Thursday – The following from “From the ‘London Times’ of 1904” may or may not have happened; Burnam posits that this “flashback, the scene of which is Vienna, the time March 31, 1898, or some eight months before the tale appeared in print.” He then quotes from the story:
March 30 Wednesday – At the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Frank Bliss, thanking him for the FE with special binding that had arrived for Princess Pauline Metternich. He also said that his niece, Annie Moffett “has those old pictures of me” and offered her address in Fredonia, N.Y. [MTP].
Sam also wrote to Dr. Rudolf Lindau:
March 29 Tuesday – The performances at Miss Virginia Bailie’s Home for English Governesses ran past midnight into the wee hours.
March 28 Monday – Sam’s notebook covers this day and a midnight reading at a home for English Governesses:
Monday, March 28, ’98. A splendid spring day. Charley Langdon and Jervis have reached London, & will come here about mid-April. They will tell us about Katy Leary, who was cabled for, two or three weeks ago, left us, after nearly 18 years’ service in our family. Prof. Dr. Winternitz called & examined Livy & Clara, to see if the Kaltenleutgeben baths will suit the complexion of their ailments.
March 25 Friday – In Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote a short note to Frank Bliss suggesting he begin the Uniform Edition with IA, and then Harper” [MTP].
On Mar. 18 in his meeting with William M. Wood about the raster machine, Sam offered to make an appointment for the two of them for Mar. 25 at Jan Szcepanik’s laboratory [Dolmetsch 201]. Note: it is assumed they kept the appointment.