April 7 Friday – Sam’s notebook in N.Y.:

Wrote Charley [Langdon] to ask Mr. A. to pay his note, beginning May 1 & paying $5,000 a month for 9 months. / $5,000 a month for 10 months, beginning 10 months hence. Told him to merely make the offer but by no means to insist / Apl. 7 — Dined with Rudyard Kipling & family. Chas. Warren Stoddard there [NB 33 TS 6].

At the Hotel Glenham in New York, Sam wrote a short note to Andrew Carnegie. He thanked him for the hospitality of the night before, and would come for lunch the next day (Apr. 8) since he was leaving town (for Chicago) the first of the week.

Notwithstanding all that conspiring last night I slept the dreamless sleep of the average assassin the night before he is hanged. There is no soporific like crime [MTP].

Sam also wrote a longish letter to Livy. He described a “curious society” of ladies of “the best society” that went about chloroforming abandoned cats. He also told a story about Dr. Clarence Rice’s boy, who was afraid of a bear coming to eat him. When asked where the bear might come from in the middle of the city, the boy “answered, still half crying: ‘He — he — well, he would come from where he was!’”

Sam also told of a yachting race, where the American yacht beat the English, with red and white flags designating the English and American crafts flying “from the lofty tower of the Madison Square Garden.” Sam gave the progression of the race from 2:15 p.m. to 6 p.m. He also described the dinner with the Kiplings two nights before (see Apr. 5) [MTP]. Note: Livy was in Venice at the time Sam wrote this letter, planning to return to Florence on Apr. 12.

Sam also wrote to Susan Crane, apologizing for not yet coming to Elmira, with Livy thinking he would have by now. Sam would be “tied” in New York until Tuesday morning (Apr. 11) at which time he would either leave for Chicago or Hartford. If he went to Chicago he’d stop in Elmira on his return for a visit. He also made reference to a “misfortune,” which included Charles Langdon, and would have affected his business and Livy’s interest. The reference has proven obscure:

Poor Livy thinks I am sending her enough good news to take the sting out of the financial part of the Neilson misfortune for her; otherwise I don’t know how I could have ventured to tell her about that awful thing. Still, nothing can save her from a woeful time, of course — she will brood & be miserable about Charley Neilson has pursued him like a devil — in his place I should have given up and died before this.

Sam wished his “tribe” could stay at Quarry Farm in June, but it could not be — they would “go to Munich & see the expert about that time, & without doubt he will require Livy to stop in his ‘cure’ a spell” [MTP].

Sam also wrote to Franklin G. Whitmore, advising him of his delay in coming to Hartford, and that he wouldn’t leave without a visit.

Glimpsed Batterson through a hotel window last night, feeding. It brought Hartford very near [MTP].

Note: James G. Batterson, founder and president of the Travelers Ins. Co. of Hartford and president of the New England Granite Works.

Sam attended a dinner with the Kiplings and Charles W. Stoddard [Gribben 667; NB 33 TS 6].