February 28 Friday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: There was a cold & tearing wind all day, so that when the Trinidad finally got in after lying to anchor outside the harbor, her smoke stacks were white with brine, & her few passengers looked wearily shaken. This morning Sorellatua & I went to a quaint little Belgian woman who has brought a quantity of lovely lace here for sale. The King drives out, & he walks out, & he is gay & young & full of a new and splendid life. Mr. Rogers is improving every day now, & he isn’t the grey feeble man he was less than a week ago.

A dance tonight & a lot of English were here. Dr. & Mrs. Parker had the Governor General here for dinner. The  Governor General looks like a parrot, Mr. Wodehouse is his name.

The King plays billiards by the hour with the 2 childhood [missing word?] Irene Gerken & Anne Fields. He is hungry for the friendship & his association of children & his first interest when he goes to a new place to find little girls [MTP: IVL TS 28; also, in part and some modified: MTHHR 645n1; D. Hoffman 105]. Note: General J.H. Wodehouse.

D. Hoffman adds, “When indoors, Clemens spent hours playing billiards with Irene and another child, Anne Fields, of Jersey City. That evening, before the regular Friday night hotel ball, his excellency the governor, Lt.-Gen. J.H. Wodehouse, arrived in regalia” [105].

Ralph W. Ashcroft wrote a laundry list to Miss Lyon, covering many of the things they’d been collaborating on. There is a certain playfulness in the second section of his letter:

Shall I tell Henderson to send along his chapter on Shaw as a philosopher?

I enclose clipping from the Sunday World; also one from the Westminster Gazette.

I have sent a package of magazines to Dr. Herring, for you. If you want others, tell me what to get.

Hobbe [Josephine Hobby] can’t have struck any snags yet, as she had not attempted to continue the acquaintance recently formed.

At last we have found a couple of suitable shells, and they will be ready next Friday. I will send one to Bermuda by next mail, and one direct to Margaret [Blackmer]. If this is not right, say so now !

—— 

I was delighted to get your note, and to learn that you did not die on the voyage. Yesterday, before receiving it, I sent you a cartoon which I received from Richards, the cartoonist who crossed to England last summer with us. If the conditions on your return voyage are not satisfactory, think of this cartoon, and be comforted. There is always a lot of solace in the thought that things might be worse.

That Byrn Mawr school has been closed, temporarily, on account of scarlet fever, so Miss Howard and the Morfords are having holidays. Miss Howard and I are going to get drunk to- morrow at Fraunces Tavern, across the Way, just as George Washington did ; then we are going to see Paid in Full at the Astor, and where we will end up if our brains get mushy, I don’t know. One thing is certain, we will not classify the tricks of the last game, and exclaim what a remarkable hand we have !

I am glad you like Miss Wallace, but I want to warn you that she is the daughter and grand- daughter of Presbyterian missionaries ; and, as you know, the offspring of parsons and professors will always bear watching.

By the way, did Sir Benjamin Stone (Keeper of the Sutton Coal-fields and Photographer- Extraordinary to the Houses of Parliament) ever keep his promise to send the King copies of the photographs taken on the Terrace, in which Balfour and Komura and the King appear?

I suppose Rogers and Benjamin monopolize the King. How do you put in your time? Not having headaches, I hope? / R.W.A. [MTP]. Note: Arthur Balfour, Komura: Japanese Ambassador.

Margaret Blackmer wrote from Briarcliff Manor, NY wishing Sam a nice time in Bermuda and when he got back her picture would be ready for him—could he ask Mr. Ashcroft to send her mother a picture of Sam and her in the donkey cart? “If you see Maud, give her my love, and tell her I hope I will see her again” [MTP].