June 25 Sunday – At the Prince of Wales Hotel in London, England, Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers, heading it “Prince of Wales Hell of a Hotel”:

I judge the Electric Spark [Harry Rogers], will be arriving tomorrow, & I hope he will come here & educate himself in the knowledge of what an English private hotel is. There isn’t a convenience known to civilization which it doesn’t lack; there isn’t a detail pertaining to its business which it isn’t ignorant of; there is no attainable incompetence in the art of running a hotel which it hasn’t acquired. It is always kept by a woman; there is no supervision, it takes care of itself & goes as you please. Its religion is, to skin whom it can catch. …

It was our purpose to remain in London till the end of July; but I want to turn the family base on the Swedish Movement Cure for a change; so passage is booked on a ship which leaves London for Gottenburg, Sweden, about 2 weeks hence (July 7.) The sanitarium is all alone by itself on a lake 4 hours from there. We expect to be there three or four months, then return to London, & finally leave for America in the winter or toward spring. It is a radical change of all the plans, you see, & cuts us out of our visit to Fairhaven, where you were going to foot all the bills, if I remember rightly. …

Kipling remained in town part of a day, & called, but I was out; then he went to his house. Doubleday came yesterday morning with a cable from Harper wanting to issue Tom Sawyer at 75 cents. I referred him to you.

Sam thought there would be no objections from Bliss or Harpers about a cheap TS edition. He closed by saying they could not leave before July 7 on account of many social engagements. He thought Rogers’ daughter Mai should join them in Sweden and “try that cure.” He claimed it rescued Poultney Bigelow “up out of the grave” [MTHHR 399-400]. Note: Bigelow made it to his 99th year in 1954.

Sam’s notebook: “Willis’s Rooms, King st. St. James’s about 8.00. kinsmen. MacAllister, supper 25th” [NB

40 TS 57]. Note: Fatout lists a speech or story by Twain at the Kinsmen [MT Speaking 666].