March 20 Thursday † – In Hartford on or just after this date Sam, through Franklin G. Whitmore, answered G.G. Green’s Mar. 19 request “that he could not spare a moment for the work you propose” [MTP].

Sam also wrote to James R. Osgood asking him the custom for reserving “a couple of the choicest (communicating) rooms” in Paris, France or New York for the “first fortnight in June” — could it be done without making advance payment?

March 19 Wednesday – Susy Clemens’ eighteenth birthday.

Sam wrote a postcard to Franklin G. Whitmore:
Yes, send me all letters that refer to the article, whether they cuss or applaud [MTP].

Rudyard Kipling’s famous interview with Mark Twain from August, 1889 ran again in the Allahabad, India The Pioneer Mail [Tenney 18; Baetzhold, John Bull 358n18].

Sam’s notebook: “Mch. 19, ’90 Chas. Hopkins Clark … one — (as trustee for Hartford Free Library) [Paige royalty sent]” [3: 569].

March 18 Tuesday – Using Franklin G. Whitmore, Sam responded to Theodore S. Parvin’s Mar. 14 request. Sam had no manuscripts to contribute for the Iowa museum [MTP]. Note: Whitmore’s note is stamped received in Iowa Mar. 20. Mail worked well in those days.

Albert Johannsen’s letter and question about HF arrived, and was probably answered this day or soon after. Sam wrote on the letter for Whitmore: “Brer, please tell him it is too long a story to tell — would require a chapter” [MTP].

March 17 Monday – In Hartford on or just after this day Sam responded to J.S. Butchelder’s Mar. 16’s query about the paper change made in Mark Twain’s Scrap-Book [MTP].

Sam also wrote to thank Andrew Carnegie for books sent, including Carnegie’s Triumphant Democracy: or Fifty Years’ March of the Republic, which Sam claimed “help to fire me up for my last book” (CY).

I am reading it again, now, & firing up for a lecture which I want to deliver on the other side one of these years. I get a little impatient sometimes, waiting for the auction of thrones… [MTP;Gribben 131].