March 9 Saturday – From the Rogers’ home on 26 E. 57th in New York, Sam wrote to Lloyd S. Bryce, editor of the North American Review.

I find a basketful of unforwarded letters here this morning; among them yours [not extant] of five days ago. If I had the Cooper article here — but it’s in Paris. I will examine it when I reach there the first week in April, & — probably re-write it. If I get it to suit me I will send it to you.

Oh, dear, I couldn’t undertake an article at ten days’ limit. That’s for O’Rell’s kind — the kind that puke an article & think it’s literature [MTP].

Note: Sam is referring here to Leon Paul Blouët, pen name Max O’Rell, French author and journalist who lectured often in England and even more so in the U.S. between 1890 and 1900. Blouët’s English wife translated his books. Blouët was also in the middle of the Paul Bourget Outre-Mer controversy, accusing Sam of being “unkind, unfair, bitter, hasty,” in using a poor translation of Bourget’s article in a N.Y. newspaper [Gribben 75]. See index for other entries with O’Rell.

Sam also wrote a letter to Eleanor V. Hutton (Mrs. Laurence Hutton) trying to trump up a good excuse for not attending a party and dance she was hosting on Mar. 16.

I’ve got your good note at last, after long delay. I thank you ever so much, & am sincerely sorry that custom forbids me to go to parties, &c, at present. A bereavement has overtaken me, & during the rest of my sojourn on this side I shall be obliged to limit myself to — well, I haven’t any shirts.

Whoever berove me of those shirts, may he be damned with a special damnation.

I am to be up in Massachusetts the 16th; but if by any chance that engagement should miss fire, I shall remember the dance & will button up & come [MTP].

Sam also wrote to his old Hartford friend, George H. Warner asking him to let him know the first time he was coming to New York. He announced he was returning to France Mar. 27 but would run to Hartford before leaving. After his signature he wrote:

In the daytime I am down town; usually at 26 Broadway — 4th floor, H.H. Rogers [MTP].