August 28 Saturday – In Elmira Sam wrote to Frederick J. Hall. Sam continued to work soliciting ems per hour information from newspapers, and directed Hall to make up a form to send to various papers. He suggested they obtain an advertising agency, which would allow the use of their name without them having to do the work. He was after country dailies now, not the big newspapers. He wanted to gauge the size of the entire market for his typesetting machine:

Please take a glance (by office boy) at your Newspaper Directory & tell me the aggregate number of dailies in the U.S., big cities & all [MTLTP 205-6].

Sam also wrote to Franklin G. Whitmore. Only the envelope survives [MTP].

Orion Clemens wrote to Sam acknowledging and thanking for the $155 check, dispersed as usual. Orion was working on Mark Twain’s Memory Builder (history game) information. Illness by Orion and Mollie had been put to “decomposed milk,” and a clipping from a Chicago newspaper about such poisoning was enclosed. Mollie received a “pleasant letter from Susie yesterday.” Ma had been to the theater twice during the past week and last Thursday to a brass band concert in the park [MTP].

Charles A. Neff wrote to Sam from Newport, R.I., sending an unspecified book which he thought was not “so elaborate a monument to the author’s absurdity as ‘English As She Is Spoke,’ but” which ranked “in some respects with ‘Ambulinia’… Neff had all of Sam’s books save IA, and could not afford to buy it, asking if Sam might “feel disposed to send…a copy.” On the envelope Sam wrote, “Answer when get home” [MTP].