June 11 Saturday – In Bad Nauheim, Germany Sam wrote to Frederick J. Hall of his departure on June 14 for New York. Livy and Jean and a French maid would stay at the resort at Bad Nauheim, with accommodations at the Villa Augusta Victoria. Susy and Sue Crane would travel around Switzerland. Clara would continue to study piano in Berlin.

If you can meet me when the ship arrives, you can help me to get away from the reporters; and maybe you can take me to your own or some other lodgings where they can’t find me.

But if the hour is too early or too late for you, I shall obscure myself somewhere till I can come to the office [MTP; June 28 to Orion].

Paine writes of Sam’s need to return to the U.S., a trip which he’d contemplated for several weeks:

“Clemens felt that his presence in America was demanded by two things. Hall’s reports continued, as ever, optimistic; but the semi-annual statements were less encouraging. The Library of Literature and some of the other books were selling well enough; but the continuous increase of capital required by a business conducted on the installment plan had steadily added to the firm’s liabilities, while the prospect of a general tightening in the money-market made the outlook not a particular happy one. Clemens thought he might be able to dispose of the Library or an interest in it, or even of his share of the business itself, to some one with means sufficient to put it on an easier financial footing. The uncertainties of trade and the burden of increased debt had become a nightmare which interfered with his sleep. It seemed hard enough to earn a living with a crippled arm, without this heavy business care.

“The second interest requiring attention was that other old one — the machine. Clemens had left the matter in Paige’s hands, and Paige, with persuasive eloquence, had interested Chicago capital to a point where a company had been formed to manufacture the type-setter in that city. Paige reported that he had got several million dollars subscribed for the construction of a factory, and that he had been placed on a salary as a sort of general ‘consulting omniscient’ at five thousand dollars a month” [MTB 946-7].