August 11 Wednesday – John Milton Hay wrote from Wash. D.C. “I sent you my speech the other day. / Please let me know where you are at this moment. I have something to send you which ought to go into your own lily-white hands. Yours…” [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “Col. John Hay, author of the ‘Pike County Ballads.” See Gribben p. 303 listing this work as 1871.

W.E. Landers wrote to Sam, asking if a clipping enclosed was true: “Ere Mark Twain: ‘Y mae hogiau drwg yn bur chwanog i edrych yn debyg i’w mamau ac ymddwyn yn debyg i’w tadau’ ”[MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “Welsh”; Google translation: “The bad guys are pretty chwanog to look the same and behave like their mothers and fathers.”