March 9 Thursday – Sam wrote a short note from Buffalo to Orion, promising to send Bliss “a chapter from the new book every month or nearly every month.” He had 168 pages of manuscript completed [MTL 4: 346]. Sam also wrote a short note to Samuel S. Cox,  who had given Sam the dinner in Washington he left after receiving a telegram about Livy.

“We are selling our dwelling & everything here & are going to spend the summer in Elmira while we build a house in Hartford. Eight months sickness & death in one place is enough for Yrs Truly” [MTL 4: 347].

Mark Twain’s Burlesque Autobiography, published a few days before, was not well received. Budd’s earliest from the Boston Evening Transcript p. 1 is a brief positive note, but the trouble was yet to come:

…is crammed full of fun, of which the illustration form no small part. The hits with pen and pencil will be enjoyed by all interested in Erie and other Fiskal operations [Budd, Reviews 93].