May 18 Friday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Howells, who wrote from Venice, Italy on Apr. 22 about negotiations with Marshall Mallory for the Colonel Sellers as a Scientist play.

I have just sent your note to the godly Mallory, and said that we would leave the matter just as it stands, not only until your return but until the play shall be completed. Said I did not wish to bind myself to write a play. Next October you will come here and roost with me, and we will lock ourselves up from all the world and put the great American comedy through. If we ever come to deal with those people, we shall not do it in person, but through the ablest legal talent that New York can furnish; and if they get ahead of us they will have to rise early [MTHL 1: 431]. Note: The Mallory brothers, George and Marshall, had cheated one James Morrison Steele MacKaye, actor, manager, and author out of royalties on a play which continued to pay them for many years (See MTHL 1: 412n2; also 432n1).

Louis Fréchette wrote a note all in French with mourning border; he mentioned Union Square Theatre on June 4, likely a reading of his [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “No answer"