February 19 Sunday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam replied to H.H. Rogers, after receiving another letter (not extant) with profitable stock news:

Why, it is just splendid! I have nothing to do but sit around & watch you set the hen & hatch out those big broods & make my living for me. Don’t you wish you had somebody to do the same for you?—a magician who can turn steel & copper & Brooklyn gas into gold. I mean to raise your wages again—I begin to feel that I can afford it. I think the hen ought to have a name; she must be called Unberufen. That is a German word which is equivalent to “’sh! hush! don’t let the spirits hear you!” The superstition is, that if you happen to let fall any grateful jubilation over good luck that you’ve had or are hoping to have, you must shut square off & say “Unberufen!” & knock wood—the word drives the evil spirits away….Set her again—do!

…

The “Forum” will print that little article. I’ve just finished a very short one (2,000 words) for the swell new London political periodical (“Lords & Commons.”) They pay $500 for it, which is double “Century” rates, & twice-&-a-half Harper’s best.

Sam then mused about living in Washington or New York, preferring the latter so he could be near Rogers who would benefit by having Sam’s “character as a model to shape-up” by.

Laffan must be prospering greatly, now, & will need a large house, & will want to rent his present one to a capitalist of high character; & so I am going to write him & let him know that I am approachable. It is right on the horse-car line to your desirable billiard-room & cigar box, & in easy reach of Rice’s house & portmonnaie [MTHHR 389-90].

Note: Source gives the Forum article as “Diplomatic Pay and Clothes,” and the London political as “The ‘Austrian Parliamentary System’? Government by Article 14.” Which ran in the Feb. 25 issue of Lords and Commons. See entry. References to Dr. Clarence C. Rice and William Mackay Laffan.