May 7 Saturday – In Hartford Sam again wrote to Edward H. House, acknowledging that House could ship his wheelchair by Adams Express and as to the trunks, he and Koto should “do whatever will be most satisfactory & convenient…”

I’m to be away the 17th & back the 18th — that is, if you arrive on the 16th; but if you are to arrive on the 17th, I will cancel my engagement & remain at home.

Sam explained that the engagement had been changed twice anyway and a letter “this morning changes it to the 17th,” so that he felt absolved “in advance from any sense of sin in case I fail to connect” [MTP].

Note: A letter from House is claimed for this date in a N.Y. Times article of Jan. 27, 1890, “Mark Twain Hauled Up,” about House’s lawsuit. Letters were used by House to establish that a verbal contract existed for him to dramatize the play, and that Sam had no right to sign a subsequent contract with Abby Sage Richardson. No such letter is in the MTP files, only a print of the Times report, nor are the “several letters” from House about the play claimed for April, 1887. In fact none are listed. Did Sam destroy them or did House invent them or — are they simply lost? From this article for the May 7 House letter:

A few nights ago the complete scheme of the play developed with an effectiveness that I had not expected to arrive at so soon. There mere writing of the scenes and acts ought not now to occupy a great deal of time. But it may take a mighty long time to find the right person to fill the double part…. I would rather have it put off two or three years than let it be intrusted to incompetent hands…. I can’t tell you, my dear Mark, what a comforting thing it is to have this piece of good fortune in prospect. It takes a load of care away from me, as you can well imagine.

George Standring, London printer and publisher, wrote Sam to say he was sending a copy of his book, The People’s History of the English Aristocracy (1887) [Gribben 656; MTP].