September 15 Friday – Sam was up at 7 a.m. and back at the frantic search for a loan with which to save from defaulting on debts due Monday, Sept. 18. From Sam’s Sept. 17 letter to Livy:
By noon all schemes of Hall & Halsey (who worked for us like a beaver) had failed, yet we must live or die on that day. Sue’s letter came, saying she had no money, & no bonds or other securities salable in New York, but that she had exchanged securities with Ida & would send $5,000 worth of negociable bonds if I would telegraph. Mr. Hall said it wouldn’t save us, for it was $8,000 we wanted, not $5,000. Then a messenger came from Dr. Rice to call me back there, & he told me he had ventured to speak to a rich friend [H.H. Rogers] of his who was an admirer of mine about our straits. I was very glad. Mr. Hall was to be at this gentleman’s office away down Broadway at 4 yesterday afternoon, with his statements; & in six minutes we had the check & our worries were over till the 28th. I telegraphed thanking Sue & Ida & saying everything was all right, at present [MTP]
In New York Sam wrote to William Webster Ellsworth of the Century Co., referring to their conversation of the night before and concluding that Mr. Samuel Langhorne Clemens would interview Mark Twain!
Mr. Clemens has a better opinion of Mr. Twain, than anyone I know of, and this is likely to afford a pleasant and complimentary interview. This has never been tried before, but I think it has large possibilities. I shall put in to-morrow and next day over in Jersey on this interview, and if it goes, and satisfies me, I will soon thereafter finish it. It will be for sale to the highest bidder. I hope that will be McClure, still the highest bidder is the man. / In this mercenary spirit, I sign myself … [MTP].
Late in the evening at Dr. Clarence C. Rice’s home, Sam wrote a few lines to daughter Clara in Elmira. He had a cold and was exhausted, so would she please thank aunt Sue and aunt Ida for him? Then he gave her his good news — the money had finally been raised to meet notes for $8,000 falling due on Monday, Sept. 18 to the Mount Morris Bank, which would no longer take or extend indebtedness to Webster & Co..
The best new acquaintance [H.H. Rogers] I’ve ever seen has helped us over Monday’s bridge. I got acquainted with him on a yacht two years ago [MTP].
Note: this raises an interesting point — when in 1891 did the men meet? There are two possibilities, as Sam was in Hartford or Europe for most of the year, making only two trips to Washington, D.C. where such a meeting might have taken place: Jan. 13 to 15, and Jan 25 to 28, 1891.
Sam had met Henry Huttleston Rogers (1840-1909), and “Monday’s bridge” was the one he’d been trying to raise capital to cross, without any luck. This is the first mention in Sam’s letters of Rogers. Note: H.H. Rogers was called “Hell Hound Rogers” by his critics.
Powers writes that “Clemens and Rogers met on a mid-September evening as Clemens stood with Dr. Rice in the lobby of the Murray Hill Hotel”:
“Rice, acquainted with the Standard Oil man, made the introductions, and the three sat down for drinks. Within minutes the author and the industrial titan had been friends since God knew when. Sam was his witty self, but was delighted to find that Rogers could match him, mot for mot and story for story. Better than that, Rogers disclosed that he‘d been a big fan since catching one of Mark Twain’s ‘Sandwich Islands’ lectures a long time ago.
“As the laughter subsided and the three got up to leave, Rice mentioned to Rogers that Mark Twain’s finances were a little disheveled. Rogers set up a meeting. At 4 p.m. on Saturday, September 16, Clemens and Fred Hall arrived at 26 Broadway…”[MT A Life 554]. Note: only Hall went to Rogers office on Sept. 16. Sam was in N.J.
Only Kaplan among major biographers puts the Rogers meeting to this date. Sam’s letter to Clara after the day’s end confirms this date. Kaplan writes Rogers directed Sam to send Fred Hall in the morning “where a check for eight thousand dollars, with the firm’s assets as security, would be forthcoming” [320]. Powers, on the other hand, writes of a 4 p.m. meeting at Rogers’ office with all three men, but Sam was in New Jersey that day.