November 11 Thursday – In Vienna, Austria Sam finished his Nov. 10 to H.H. Rogers. After thinking about the plan to pay off $30,000 to the creditors for 24 hours, he was convinced it was “sound & rational,” and he wished he’d thought of it “twenty days ago” for it had been “raining & snowing & storming politics here” and he felt he should have been writing about it. He had just received a letter and evidently a photo of Rogers (not extant), and he complimented him on his youthful looks at 58.

Wait till you are 62! You will not be the frivolous young thing you are now. The comedy of life will have played it gay curtain down, by then; —you wait & see.

However—not necessarily. Some people are born young, & stay so. Like my mother, who was still young & full of the zest of life at 88; & like yours, who at 86 is her counterpart [MTHHR 303-4].

Sam also wrote to Chatto & Windus with another name to add to the list of those he wished to receive a complimentary copy of More Tramps Abroad, (FE): Mrs. Helen Lucy Stewart Skrine, in Lochearnhead, Scotland [MTP].

In the Boston Globe, p. 5:

Mark Twain’s Recipe.

The Way They Make Coffee in Europe.

“Take a barrel of water and bring it to a boil, rub a chicory berry against a coffee berry, then convey the former into the water.

Insert the remains of an old cow in a hydraulic press and when you shall have acquired a teaspoonful of the pale blue juice which an old superstition regards as milk, modify the malignity of its strength in a bucket of tepid water and ring up the breakfast. Mix the beverage in a cold cup, partake with moderation and keep a wet rag around your head to guard against over-excitement.”