Submitted by scott on

April 12 Tuesday – At the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote two letters to George Barrow—however at the top is written: “(Disapproved by Mrs. C. & not sent).” Sam reacted to Barrow expecting interest on Sam’s debt to him, and referred him to H.H. Rogers [MTP]. For the full text of these unsent letters to Barrow, see MTHHR 341n1. Also see next to Rogers.

Sam also wrote to H.H. Rogers

A week or two ago I received the enclosed letter from Barrow; it is in reply to my letter (the one which you think may not have reached him.)

This first page of Barrow’s letter is exasperating. I find I cannot answer it & keep my temper. He ignores Benajmin’s interview with him (middle paragraph.)

In the bottom paragraph he seems to think you are going to turn out & hunt him up, or inaugurate a correspondence with him. He is probably in error.

In my letter to him I told him to go to you. On his second page, now, he wants to deal directly with me, or go to you armed with an ultimatum.

Is he an ass? Is he an idiot? Is he a child? What is he? He does not seem to be aware that it is he that is walking the floor—thinks it is us.

How would it do to let him go on walking? Till he gets tired, & goes to you of his own accord. I have lost interest in him & his claims.

Sam was not “having any more sentimental bellyaches on his account.” He then turned to a short note about working on translations and magazine articles. Charles J. Langdon and son Jervis Langdon II had arrived the day before and while they visited he would take a vacation from his work. Sam was waiting for Ludwig Kleinberg to “hunt up some exact statistics concerning the design- industry.” Sam confessed that those for Germany he’d secured “take the value of the invention down several pegs”; instead of the machine paying back the investment in one year, it would take three.

He had not heard back from Rogers about the Raster machine so assumed he was “taking testimony” and would determine the market for it, large or small. Sam closed by guessing Rogers knew the day before if it was war with Spain. “In this slow country we shan’t know till tonight” [MTP; MTHHR 339-41].

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Mark Twain Day By Day was originally a print reference, meticulously created by David Fears, who has generously made this work available, via the Center for Mark Twain Studies, as a digital edition.   

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