February 20 Tuesday – In New York at the Players Club, Sam wrote to Livy. The first part of the letter is lost. What remains opens with notes about a conference with Rogers:
He is fast coming to the opinion that I had better assume the debts & close up the concern [Webster & Co.] & turn over my own books to the Century Co on the best terms I can get. They want my books badly, but don’t value any of the others.
February 19 Monday – In Paris, Livy cabled Sam that daughter Susy was better [Feb. 20 to Livy]. Frederick J. Hall located the lost MS, “In Defense of Harriet Shelley,” [Feb. 20 to Livy] which Paine calls “one of the very best of his essays” [MTLP 590]. See also MTB 988. Note: North American Review would publish the essay in July 1894.
February 18 Sunday – The New York Times, p.2 “City and Vicinity” announced that “Mark Twain” and James Whitcomb Riley would give readings in Madison Square Garden on the evenings of Feb. 26 and 27.
In the evening in New York on Players Club stationery, Sam answered an invitation to breakfast (not extant) from Frank Fuller. Yes, he changed his program each time he gave it but didn’t know whether James Whitcomb Riley did or not; he hadn’t seen Riley.
February 17 Saturday – In New York Sam responded to a note of invitation from Helena de Kay Gilder (Mrs. Richard Watson Gilder). He’d not answered sooner because he anticipated seeing her the previous night, and was “at work nearly all night the night before [Feb. 15] on a gigantic letter to Mrs. Clemens.” Evidently, the event he was invited to was past, as he ended wishing he might have “better luck next time” [MTP].
February 16 Friday – Sam’s notebook in N.Y.:
Feb. 16. An ostensible gentleman sat at table in the grill room this morning & struggled with the excrement in his head, trying to cough it out, bark it out, snort it out, snuffle it out, hawk it out, till I was so sick that I was obliged to ask him if he wouldn’t please go to the privy & finish [NB 33 TS 56].
February 15 Thursday – At 11:30 p.m. at the New York Players Club, Sam wrote another long letter to Livy. Near the end he outlined the day’s activities:
It has been a mighty busy day. I had myself called at 9. At 10 I was down at Mr. Rogers’s office.
Samuel Clemens, H.H. Rogers, and J.M. Shoemaker met again to plan the sale of stock in the new Illinois company, the Paige Compositor Co.
February 14 Wednesday – J.M. Shoemaker arrived in New York. Sam wrote of a meeting between himself, H.H. Rogers and Shoemaker on this day:
February 13 Tuesday – At 1 a.m. in New York, Sam finished the multi-part letter to Livy he began on Feb. 11. The broker from Elmira with whom Sam wanted to sell stock in the new Paige company, J.M. Shoemaker, was thought to be blocked by a snowstorm which began at noon on Feb. 12. H.H. Rogers had invited Sam to dinner (on Feb. 12) and offered to keep posted by telephone on Shoemaker’s arrival at the Players Club, and also to be on hand should there be problems in the trade.
February 12 Monday – In New York Sam continued his Feb. 11 to Livy, which he finished on Feb. 13. He told of the Jan. 29 reception by the Kindergarten Association. See that entry for part of Sam’s letter.
Sam also responded on Players Club stationery to a request by James B. Pond (not extant): “the gods are against it,” he wrote; he’d sail for Europe three weeks from this day, or Monday, March 5 [MTP].
Sam’s notebook:
February 11 Sunday – In New York at the Players Club Sam wrote to Poultney Bigelow, responding to his new book, and a “charming invitation.” Sam wrote about his “great big anonymous historical romance,” on which he’d already written 93,000 words, and only a third of the book (Joan of Arc).