March 2 Monday – At the Princess Hotel in Hamilton, Bermuda Sam added a PS to his Feb. 29 letter to daughter Clara: “P.S. Monday Eve. Your letter has arrived, with its gratifying news. The Oswego incident is worth a dozen word-compliments.”
Sam also replied to the Feb. 28 from Margaret Blackmer at The Misses Tewksbury’s School, Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y.
Dear Margaret:
March 1 Sunday – In Bermuda, the Clemens party took an excursion to see the new island aquarium, which had opened on Jan. 1, 1908. D. Hoffman gives “the effervescent and obliging U.S. consul,” W. Maxwell Greene as organizer of the trip, and writes: Goodwin Gosling, secretary to the Bermuda Natural History Society, also came aboard….
March – Burr McIntosh Monthly (NY) ran a portrait of Twain and daughter Clara, p. 57-8,. Tenney: “Accompanying text states that MT had approximately $50,000 on deposit at the Knickerbocker Trust Company in New York at the time of the crash; he opposed establishing a permanent receivership on the grounds that it would be as expensive to maintain as a harem: ‘Anybody who has had experience in this line will endorse my statement’” [45].
February 29 Saturday – At the Princess Hotel in Hamilton, Bermuda Sam began a letter to daughter Clara that he added a PS to on Mar. 2.
February 28 Friday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: There was a cold & tearing wind all day, so that when the Trinidad finally got in after lying to anchor outside the harbor, her smoke stacks were white with brine, & her few passengers looked wearily shaken. This morning Sorellatua & I went to a quaint little Belgian woman who has brought a quantity of lovely lace here for sale. The King drives out, & he walks out, & he is gay & young & full of a new and splendid life. Mr.
February 27 Thursday – In Bermuda, the Clemens party was entertained by a baseball game [D. Hoffman 105].
Isabel Lyon’s journal: Ball game today / I turn on the practical faucet & suggest a publisher. This apropos to Miss W’s [Wallace’s] charming ms. reminiscent of her life in France. She’s been reading it to me on the porch & I went off to find the King just arrived from a trip to town with Mr. Rogers. St. Simeon Slylites—or Skylights—[MTP: IVL TS 27-28].
February 26 Wednesday – At 21 Fifth Ave. NY, Isabel Lyon telephoned Albert Bigelow Paine after discovering some missing older letters of Clemens’. Isabel Lyon’s diary:
Tino [a nickname for Paine] in Redding…to ask about letters that I am missing and that the King and Santa [Clara] would hold me responsible for. He was cross and answered in a burst of ill temper that he had many letters and would take them when he wanted to. This is not quite right of Tino—and is a new and regrettable attitude [Hill 201].
February 25 Tuesday – In Bermuda, Sam made another excursion in the donkey cart, this time to Spanish Point with Irene Gerken. Reginald handled the donkey as before, while Isabel Lyon, Elizabeth Wallace, and William Benjamin all walked. H.H. Rogers did not go [D. Hoffman 105]. See Lyon’s entry below:
February 24 Monday – The Clemens party arrived in Bermuda and Sam checked into the Princess Hotel in Hamilton, Bermuda where he wrote two postcards to Frances Nunnally.
Francesca dear, I got your letter just as I was leaving New York—thank you dear.
I am writing now because I suppose that the linchpin got lost in the mails; & if that is so, I want you to drop me a line here, so that I can replace it with another.
February 23 Sunday – A somewhat longer article on H.H. Rogers and Twain leaving for Bermuda ran on the front page of the New York Times.
ROGERS AND TWAIN SAIL
———
Exchanging Jests on the Pier—Financier Thinks the Outlook Bright.
“This is what I get for being in bad company,” said Mark Twain, humorist, pointing to H. H. Rogers, financier, when a host of interviewers descended upon him yesterday morning on the deck of the steamship Bermudian, previous to their departure for Bermuda.