December 28 Wednesday – In Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Richard Watson Gilder.

December 27 Tuesday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote and cabled H.H. Rogers.

December 26 Monday – Louisa Wohl wrote to Sam; the letter not extant but referred to in Sam’s Dec. 28 to Gilder; see entry [MTP].

December 25 Sunday – Christmas – The New York Times, ran “Hearst’s Borrowed Shirt,” a story about Sam Clemens loaning George Hearst a “biled shirt” back in Virginia City days. Hearst, unable to find a shirt to wear to a wedding, borrowed one of Sam’s, something greatly frowned on in those days, but was exposed after a fight. Just why the Times ran this story on Christmas is anyone’s guess. Roughing It, p. 416 (Chapter LVII): “For those people hated aristocrats.

December 24 Saturday – Sam related this family’s evening to William Dean Howells in his Dec. 30:

December 23 Friday – H.H. Rogers wrote to Sam, letter not extant but referred to in Jan. 3, 1899 to Rogers.

December 19 Monday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Poultney Bigelow.

I was astonished at the handwriting & took it to mean extreme age until I referred to the signature; then I judged it meant rheumatism and would presently disappear, you being young, as yet, and no proper subject for permanent infirmities of that nature.

….

December 17 Saturday – Joe Twichell wrote to Sam and Livy:

Yours of the 2nd inst. about Ned Bunce came this morning, and found me on the point of mailing you the enclosed. Yes, as you say, the old fellowship is now at the dissolving stage and we are writing one another’s obituaries. How could life ever have seemed anything but the stuff that dreams are made of. Only to hope andto grief it is long.

December 15 Thursday – Sam also wrote to an unidentified man (the recipient’s name has been mostly erased – “Nash”?) on Hotel Krantz stationery: “It is too late. I am sorry, but this article went out of my hands a couple of months ago / Sincerely Yours / SL Clemens” [Weekes Autographs; eBay 180520623000, June 15, 2010]. Note: the sender likely was inquiring about an article for submission to some publication, so was likely an editor. Jodee Benussi caught this one.

December 13 Tuesday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam finished his Dec. 8 and 11 letter to H.H. Rogers.

Mrs. Clemens wouldn’t let me charge the Harpers a fair price, so I cabled them that ther offer “lacks $500.” I would have made it double that. And she says the cablegram was from you, not the Harpers. Women are full of superstitions, & don’t know anything.

Did the Harpers pay you the $500 they “allowed” me for the Jew article? They didn’t send it here.