December 10 Friday – At the Metropole Hotel, Vienna, Austria, Sam replied to Harold Godwin’s Dec. 9 that “a gratifying large per centage” of his creditors had written letters to him that he was “proud to keep.” Sam thanked him personally for his personal letter and “for the spirit which moved” Godwin to do what he did “in the matter of the indebtedness” [MTP]. Note: For Sam to have answered Godwin’s Dec. 9, he must have received a cable from Katharine Harrison regarding the matter. The cable is not extant.

Sam also wrote to Joe Twichell, referencing a cable (not extant) and a Cleveland paper sent by James B. Pond. The paper contained exaggerations about being “hustled out” of the Reichsrath on Nov. 26. After recounting what actually happened (see entry for this portion of Sam’s letter), Sam related recent family doings, and enclosed a couple of choice letters he’d received:

I have been interrupted & now my time is short. I will shove other people’s letters in—that will fill up. The small note is from a handsome young girl who sat in the next box to the one occupied by Clara & the Letchititchkis [Leschetizkys] & me at the opera the other night. The penciled noted is the rough draft of the answer I sent her. A very pretty letter came back, but Livy is keeping it.

Some of the letters that come are just too lovely—the enclosed one from Hamburg, Germany, for instance. That is the way to say the pleasant thing to the stranger.