May 28 Friday – Orion Clemens wrote acknowledging a draft from Webster & Co. For $155 — $5 for “Puss” Quarles, $50 for Ma, and $100 for himself. “Ma is going 3 blocks to the opera-house to-night to a home-children’s performance. Prefers walking; saves hack-hire” [MTP].

Frederick J. Hall wrote thanking Sam for the advancement in position and salary [MTP].

John M. Hay wrote that he was “off for Cleveland tomorrow” and had “made other arrangements,” “and thus vanishes into the [illegible word] my chance of a $200,000 check with your equally valuable signature” [MTP]. Note: Hay and John G. Nicolay, private secretaries to Abraham Lincoln, worked for fifteen years on Abraham Lincoln: A History (1890), which was serialized by the Century magazine from 1886 to 1890; the pair received $50,000 for the rights — an unprecedented amount for a magazine to pay. Interestingly, this is the only work of Hay’s that is not listed in Sam’s library [Gribben 301-2].

William Dean Howells also wrote to Sam (not in MTHL).

Now that my letter is irrevocably yours into the letter box, I’m afraid my version of Mr. Scott’s [?] joke of the superior ease of making one’s peace with one’s God as compared with one’s wife, may put…difficulty in your say about the check. You mustn’t let it; that’s all. I thought it was funny; now I see it’s stupid [MTP].