January 24 Wednesday – In New York at the Players Club, Sam ordered a wakeup call for 8 a.m. then “ran out” to H.H. Rogers’ home at 9 a.m. and “talked business until half past 10, arranging a scheme for suppressing the remaining royalties.” Such plans were aimed at increasing the value of Sam’s royalties. Sam then caught the 11 a.m. train for Boston, arriving at 6 p.m. He shaved and dressed by 7 p.m. and went to dinner at Mrs. Annie Fields’ “charming house,” (148 Charles St.) where he stayed until Saturday. Oliver Wendell Holmes, now 84, came to dinner. Sam wrote of the gathering to Livy:

Mrs. Fields said Aldrich begged to come & went away crying because she wouldn’t let him. She allowed only her family (Sarah Orne Jewett & sister) to be present, because much company would overtax Dr. Holmes.

Well, he was just delightful! He did as brilliant & beautiful talking (& listening) as he ever did in his life, I guess. Fields & Jewett [in a “Boston marriage”] said he hadn’t been in such splendid form in years. He had ordered his carriage for 9. The coachman sent in for him at 9; but he said, “Oh, nonsense! — leave glories & grandeurs like these? Tell him to go away & come in an hour!” …

He was prodigiously complimentary about some of my books, & is having Puddnhead read to him. I told him you & I used the Autocrat as a courting book & marked it all through, & that you keep it in the sacred green box with the love letters, & it pleased him [MTP: Jan. 25 to Livy].

Caldwell Hart Colt (“Colly”), heir to the Samuel Colt fortune, died at Punta Gorda, Florida of malignant tonsillitis after an operation. He died intestate and a bachelor. Sam would write his mother, Elizabeth H. Colt, commenting on a memorial book of “Colly” on Feb. 15, 1895. See N.Y. Times, Jan. 23, 1894 p.1 “Victim of Malignant Tonsillitis.” Note: Sam and Livy had attended several Colt functions, including the 21st birthday of Caldwell at Armsmear, the Colt mansion in Hartford on Nov. 24, 1879.