March 1 Thursday – In New York Sam wrote to Livy at the Hotel Brighton in Paris, France.
A man said to-day “Puddnhead Wilson is making a big stir. They say, all around, that it’s away up — the best work you’ve ever done except the Prince & Pauper. Don’t you think so yourself?”
I could have said, “No, sir — it don’t even begin with Joan of Arc” — but I didn’t . Land, if I could only get to work at that book once more, how I would revel in the great campaign of the Loire — the matchless, the stupendous campaign of the Loire!
Sam also wrote of “no end of compliments” about his article, “Traveling with a Reformer,” that people were trying the “system” expounded in the sketch and it worked.
He repeatedly had tried to reassure Livy about his health, due to some newspaper reports of his earlier illness.
Livy dear, don’t you be troubled a bit about my health; I am in splendid condition. Don’t lie awake on my account, sweetheart, I take good care of myself. I wear gum shoes in wet weather, & a chamois skin vest next to my hide when I put on a swallow-tail. … Joe Twichell sent you a cablegram endorsing my sound health. I judged you would believe him if you didn’t believe me.
Sam also disclosed that “Nothing is going to be accomplished in that royalty-business tomorrow,” as Henry G. Newton, Charles R. North’s New Haven attorney couldn’t come to New York due to court duties. He closed with a humorous anecdote about a man on the elevated train the other day, who told Sam he looked enough like Mark Twain to sit for his portrait [MTP].
Sam also responded on Players Club stationery to an unidentified man’s invitation. He wrote he was unable to accept since he would sail for Europe, three days before the date advanced [MTP].
In the evening Sam was “helping the Kinsmen entertain” Henry Irving. Sam’s help went on till 4 a.m. the next morning, Mar. 2. Sam wrote that Mrs. Annie Rogers was “dangerously ill last night. I was out there till midnight — then the consulting physicians said the danger was past. Tonight she was getting along first rate [Mar.2 to Livy]. Note: Abbie Gifford Rogers did not have long to live.