January 12 Sunday – The Clemens party was at sea on the Oceana en route to Colombo, Ceylon. Shut up in his “cabin with another allfired cold,” Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers.

I shall have to read in Colombo if there is time; and we are trying to doctor-up my voice. But I don’t care if it never gets audible again. I have been persecuted with carbuncles and colds until I am tired and disgusted and angry.

I’ve been writing a note to J. Henry Harper to ask him to renew the copyright of “Innocents Abroad” for Mrs. Clemens’s benefit.

Sam then mentioned an old debt owed to him which the Webster & Co. creditors should be ashamed to collect — of about $700 from the $500 he lent to Jesse Grant in 1885 when they were hard up. It had never been paid, so as a receivable of Webster & Co., the creditors might claim it. Sam pointed out to Rogers something that he probably knew well, that Sam had saved the Grant family $200,000 by keeping them from signing a contract with the Century Co. for a ten per cent royalty.

It is roasting hot here within fifty yards of the equator. Mrs. Clemens doesn’t allow me to leave this room to-night. Still, I think I will dress and go on deck. …I think that when I get through in South Africa I will settle down there or in England for half a year or more and write two books before I take up lecturing again. Please remember me to Miss Harrison [MTHHR 190-1].

Sam also wrote (not extant) to J. Henry Harper, as mentioned in the letter to Rogers (above).