February 26 Monday – At 12:30 a.m. Sam added a line or two to his Feb. 25 to Livy, that all his letters were written and he was going to bed At 2 p.m. he added another line or two that he’d received her letter and one from daughter Jean “about her dog. It came very near making me cry” [MTP].

On this night and the next, Feb. 27, Mark Twain, James Whitcomb Riley and Douglass Sherley, gave a reading in Madison Square Garden Concert Hall, New York. Sam earned $250 per night and he read, “Jumping Frog,” “Company of Mean Men,” and “Oudinot” [Fatout, Lecture Circuit 235; New York Times, February 27, 1894]. Note: though this was only a two-night affair, Sam must have realized the sort of prices he could command, far more than the 50 to 100 dollars he earned on the old circuits. He had already expressed the possibility of a world tour to Livy in his letter of Sept. 28, 1893. ‡ – See addenda.