December 6 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Montreal to Livy. He was “pegging away” at a speech for Thursday night, but missed the family:

“I would most powerfully like to see you & the rats. I think of Jean sometimes, too; & to-day I happened to think of the dog. I love you, darling” [MTP].

Jeannette L. Gilder (1849-1916) for The Critic wrote, enclosing “a little communication you may be interested in. Need I say we would be most happy to publish any reply you may care to make.” Enclosed was a letter to the Editor of The Critic from “A Captious Reader” claiming that “A Curious Episode” by Twain was a true story from 1878 told by “an officer of the U.S. Artillery…Did Mr. Twain expect the public to credit this narrative to his clever brain?” [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “Copy of private letter to the Editor”

Joel Chandler Harris wrote:

“I ought to have thanked you long ago for your kindness in reading me the legend of the Golden Arm, and for your generous refusal to regard Uncle Remus from the standpoint of a critic. I have been endeavoring to verify the legend, however, and with that end in view I sent it down into Putnam County. It comes back a little changed. The golden arm has disappeared, and ‘a silver sev’npence wat de folks done gone en put on de ‘oman eyeled fer to keep um shot’ has taken its place. The ‘sev’npence (or seven pence) is stolen and put in a box, where it jumps up and rattles when the woman’s ghost comes….The two stories may be entirely different…” [MTP]. Note: Sam had been trying to discover the origin of the story that Uncle Dan’l told at Quarles farm when Sam was a boy.

Charles Webster wrote more about the typesetter exhibition for the newspaper men. No, the machine was not run long & continuously but was fully inspected in every detail. He was still trying to melt brass, even as he wrote [MTP].