January 4 Thursday – Sam arrived in Dayton, Ohio and stayed at the Beckel House, Room 169. In the evening he lectured “Roughing It” to a full house in the Music Hall. He wrote John Henry Riley about plans for the diamond book, thinking that he’d be ready to start the collaboration around the first week in March [MTL 5: 2-3].

Friend Riley—

Heaven prosper the Minister to S. A! Amen.

“This is my thought”—as the Injuns say (but only in novels.) The first day of March—or the 4th or 5th at furthest—I shall be ready for you. I shall employ a good, appreciative, genial phonographic reporter who can listen first rate, & enjoy, & even throw in a word, now & then. Then we’ll all light our cigars every morning, & with your notes before you, we’ll talk & yarn & laugh & weep over your adventures, & the said reporter shall take it all down—& so, in the course of a week or so, we’ll have you & Du Toits Pan & Du Toits other household & kitchen furniture all pumped dry—& away you go for Africa again & leave me to work up & write out the book at my leisure (of which I have abundance—very.)

How’s that?

Don’t say any thing about the book.

Never mind Babe— his book won’t hurt—opposition’s the life of trade—but of course I’d rather be out first. Why didn’t you get my letter & stay there longer.

Ys

Mark

[MTPO]. Note: Du Toits Pan was a well known S. African mining camp. Jerome L. Babe’s 1871 “letters from the diamond fields of South Africa” to the New York World, made Americans aware of their importance.

Sam also wrote to Livy late, explaining why he declined stays at private homes:

“Hotels are the only proper places for lecturers. When I am ill natured I so enjoy the freedom of a hotel—where I can ring up a domestic & give him a quarter & then break furniture over him—then I go to bed calmed & soothed, & sleep as peacefully as a child” [MTL 5: 5].