July 26 Thursday – Jean Clemens’ fourteenth birthday.

In New York at the Players Club Sam wrote to Livy.

I could kick myself for my heedlessness in trying to tell you yesterday when to look for me; for my letter hadn’t been gone half an hour when I remembered that Mr. Rogers & I will almost certainly have to go to Chicago.

The test of the newest Paige typesetter was to be held for a month at the Chicago Herald, and several things needed to be determined — for one, the royalty to be charged per 1,000 ems. Sam related the private-turned-public reading the night before (July 25) at the Oriental Hotel, and of seeing Charles Langdon there with General George J. Magee. He added a PS:

My! But I got lots & lots of nice compliments upon the Shelley article. Even from hardened politicians, like the Secretary of the Navy [MTP].

Note: Hillary Abner Herbert (1834-1919), ex-Confederate, was then Cleveland’s Sec. of the Navy (1893-1897). He’d been a Congressman from Alabama from 1877-1893. Sam’s reason for citing Herbert is not clear.

Sam also wrote to Laurence Hutton:

It’s Jean’s birth-day — 14 years old, think of that. No children left — I am submerged with women.

I expected to get a chance to run up to Onteora [N.Y.] but it looks now as if I must go to Chicago — in which case the chance is lost, as I return to Europe as soon as I can get away.

Sam also wrote of talking with Fitch’s people about lecturing 25 to 40 nights in England and Scotland in the fall — that he’d left the matter undecided. (This was probably not Thomas Fitch, of Nevada fame.)

Plans? I haven’t any. I don’t make ‘em. It’s Mrs. C. that runs that part of the firm.

Sam sent his affections to Mrs. Hutton and directed that the strength of them not be modified [MTP].

Later, from H.H. Rogers’ office, Sam wrote a second letter to Livy, “extravagantly cheerful”:

Good-morning & I wish you well, my darling! I am very cheerful, & can’t help it; & I hope you & the rest of you are also very cheerful & can’t help it.

I like my lawyers very much. Mr. Stern [Simon H. Stern of Stern & Rushmore] says our case will not be handled as he would handle the case of an ordinary bankrupt, but that my world-wide reputation will be considered all the time, & no move made which can open to any man’s criticism as a departure from the highest standard of honor….

Sam confirmed they would pay 100 cents on the dollar operating in the “wisest and best way” to get it done. Also good news — he’d had an offer for Joan of Arc from Harper’s that was “pretty nearly satisfactory,” and that Rogers leaned toward him accepting, though Sam thought the Century Co. might give more. Sam ended with the fact that he was leaving with the Rogers family for Fairhaven, Mass. [LLMT 307].