December 29 Sunday – Sam’s “Holy Land Excursion. Letter from Mark Twain Number Thirty-two” dated Sept. at “Banias” ran in the Alta California [McKeithan 204-8].

December 30 Monday – Sam wrote from New York to the Brooklyn Eagle, responding to an article “Trouble among the Pilgrims,” which had appeared on Dec. 24.

December 31 Tuesday – Sam’s article on Duncan appeared in the Brooklyn Eagle. That evening Sam went with the Langdons to Charles Dickens’ read from David Copperfield at Steinway Hall in New York. Sam noted that Dickens not only read, but acted, an important lesson Sam noted about successful platform speakers.

1867, Late – 1868 – Sometime in late 1867 Sam met General Ulysses S. Grant at a Washington reception. The two did not speak on their first meeting. MTA dictated in 1885 gives this date as “the fall or winter of 1866” [1: 13]. Mark Perry, p. xxvi, also gives this as late 1866, but Sam was not in Washington that entire year.