August 5 Friday – Sam’s notebook entry: “Began ‘Huck Finn in Africa’ August 5, 1892” [NB 32 TS 18]. This was to be called Tom Sawyer Abroad and would run serialized in St. Nicholas from Nov. 1893 to Apr. 1894, prior to Webster & Co. publishing it in book form. See Apr. 16, 1894.

At the Kaiserhof Hotel in Bad Nauheim, Germany, Sam wrote his thanks to Chatto & Windus for sending a letter of credit as payment of his royalties. He also disclosed a bit of traveling the past few days, without specifics, and announced he’d begun the book he’d mentioned when asking for paper.

I have been roving, a few days, but am back again & have begun the book which I was projecting when I wrote & asked for paper [July 29]; & also I find your letter & the Baron’s. I do not know how to praise your stewardship as highly as it deserves….I hold him [Baron Tauchnitz] in the highest respect & esteem. I am particularly glad to remain in his hands; it pleases me better than anything else could have done [MTP].

Sam also wrote to William Walter Phelps, the American Minister to Germany. Sam wanted Phelps and family to visit them at Bad Nauheim rather than the Clemenses traveling to Wiesbaden, where Sam had heard Phelps was going next.

Break the orders & come. I & the children will be good to you both — yes, & we will even let Mrs. Clemens enjoy a chance at you notwithstanding the doctor here has condemned her for a year to absolute seclusion from human society. And I tell you these sprudel baths are just darlings. I am taking them, not for physical deterioration but for moral decay. They take right hold. Ordinarily a single course removes the enamel from the conscience, but it has been thought best for me to double up [MTP].