July 21 Thursday – In Elmira Sam wrote to William (Billy) Gross of Brown & Gross, Hartford booksellers:

Whatinthehelldoyoureckonamancando with a History that begins with Volume V? (Lecky’s History of the 18th Century.) Shove along the other 4 volumes and don’t fool around [MTP].

Note: William Lecky’s A History of England in the Eighteenth Century would eventually be eight volumes (1887-90). Sam would credit Lecky in his tentative appendix for CY. See Gribben 400.

Sam also wrote to Franklin G. Whitmore. He was in the heat of composing new chapters to CY. Kaplan notes Sam was working “seven hours a day on his book…tense and anxious, unable to sleep at night. He sat up late, smoking and thinking” [298]. Sam wrote Whitmore to furnish the necessary funds for Paige to spend on his motor.

Within the past 3 days I have got head over heels in a book & am writing without rest or stop — steam at high pressure. As the book is worth thirty or forty thousand dollars when finished, I can’t afford to stop to read agreements, write letters, or anything else [MTP].

Colonel Fred Grant wrote Webster & Co. Charging that his accountant concluded that the company owed his mother about $104,000 more than she had been paid. On the envelope of his copy of Grant’s letter, Sam wrote, “Fred Grant’s queer letter.” Among other things, Grant questioned the inclusion of large legal fees as “publishing costs” [MTLTP 222n1&4].

James W. Paige wrote to Sam enclosing a letter from Pratt & Whitney and his answer to it dictated by Hamersley. He also enclosed a financial statement “taken from my books.” Paige reported Hamersley’s opinion that they might have to pay additional funds to P&W. The $20,000 “appropriated for the building of the Type Setting Machine has run out,” so stated the P&W letter.

Franklin G. Whitmore wrote two letters to Sam, the first advising of Pratt & Whitney’s position (see Paige’s letter above) that they had fulfilled their contract. The second letter asked Sam to keep Robinson’s name confidential as a source of opinon on the dispute [MTP].