November 11 Tuesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Frederick J. Hall that his mother-in-law, Olivia Lewis Langdon, had agreed to loan $10,000 for one year at six percent. He asked Hall to send her the firm’s note. After his signature Sam clarified, “(Her mother lends it to her)” [MTP].

Joseph Hatton wrote from N.Y. to Sam: “My lawyer in London is in negotiation with Mrs Berringer for the acting rights to Prince & P. in England. I suppose there is no doubt that she has your rights for England?” Sam wrote on the envelope, “Joseph Hatton (will answer him)” [MTP].

The New York Tribune of Nov. 11, 1890 took the opportunity to jab Mark Twain over the fired conductor incident. In full:

MARK TWAIN’S LETTER.

The Tribune observes with pleasure that Mr. Mark Twain, of Hartford, has been in town. New-York is always glad to have Mr. Twain visit her. She likes to have him come and put up at a hotel and stay a week and enjoy himself. And usually, we believe, he does enjoy himself when he comes; but this time we are sorry to see that his stay was marred by an unpleasant incident. He had trouble with a horse-car conductor. He has himself written a garbled and imaginative account of it, from which we shall make no extracts, but proceed to give the facts in the case exactly as they occurred.

Mr. Twain arrived at the Grand Central Station last Saturday at 11:25 o’clock a.m. He was approached by interested gentlemen wearing high hats of an earlier date, who said: “Keb, sir?” but Mr. Twain took no keb. He preferred to walk, and started out along Forty-second st. in the direction of the North River, carrying his gripsack in one hand and lunch-box and umbrella in the other. At exactly 11:45 he arrived at Sixth-ave. Here he boarded a red Sixth-ave. Car, numbered 106, which was going downtown. He stopped on the rear platform long enough to pay his fare, but said nothing whatever to the conductor. Then he stepped just inside the door and, there being no vacant seat, reached up and secured himself by a strap and began to read the advertisements in the car, many of which were really of considerable merit. Soon others boarded the car, but they could not get in, as Mr. Twain blocked up the doorway. “Step right up front, there,” said the conductor in a loud voice. Twain did not move. Another passenger got on and looked at the humorist’s back. “Step right up forward — plenty o’ room up front,” yelled the conductor. Mr. Twain stood still and hung to the strap. Twice more did the conductor admonish the author to forget these things that were behind and press forward, once tapping him gently on the back, but Twain held his own. The conductor became perplexed and did not know what to do. He began to suspect that his passenger could not move for some reason. He jumped off and ran ahead and got on the front platform and communicated his suspicion to the driver .

It happened that the driver was a patron of several circulating libraries and a man of extensive reading. After he heard the conductor he said: “I was a-reading Mark Twain about another feller that had a frog that could out-jump any other frog in Calaveras County. He was an awful jumper. But one day a stranger come along with jess an ord’nary plug frog an’ they got up a match, an’ the stranger’s frog hopped right away from the big jumper, an’ the stranger walked off with the money they had up. When he’d gone the feller tipped up his jumper an’ poured a double-handful of shot out of his mouth that the stranger had filled up his stomach with. Mebby somebody filled up that man that way so he can’t move. I tell you what, we oughter stand that feller on his head and pour the bird-shot out of him.” He accordingly stopped his horses and went in with the conductor, and together they seized Mr. Twain and turned him upside down and bumped the top of his head on the floor and pounded him on the back for two or three minutes. Of course, they were unsuccessful, but after they stood him on his feet he became very indignant and got off the car and walked back to Forty-second-st., where the company’s offices are situated, to report the outrage, as he considered it. Here he found, however, that all of the officers from the president down to the last assistant clerk, had gone fishing at Hellgate, and after waiting around a while, he decided to give up his stay in New York, walked back to the Grand Central and took the twelve-forty train for Hartford, after a stay in the city of one hour and fifteen minutes.

These are the facts, cold, metallic facts, as we may call them, which can be substantiated. Mr. Mark Twain in his letter to the press tried to throw dust in the eyes of the New-York public. No conductor swore at him. If we so desired we could say that his letter is a tissue of falsehoods; as it is, we will say that it bristles with inaccuracies. We are the more surprised of this when we remember the almost idolatrous regard for truth which he has always heretofore shown in his public writings. But greater men than he have allowed passion to carry them away. We look for a general retraction and an apology to New-York from Mr. Twain by an early mail [Clipping at MTP; page no. not shown].