October 11 Tuesday – Alfred P. Burbank wrote to Sam setting forth an offer of Chandos Fulton to re-write the play for $300 up front and a quarter of the profits [MTP]. Note: evidently, the play as written was not “pay dirt” at all.
October 10 Monday – Webster & Co. Wrote to Sam about the articles to be in the Library of Humor book. They’d also received “a note from Gen. Lucius Fairchild who says that Robert D. Beath…will probably write the history of the G.A.R.” — should they communicate with him? Gen.Crawford’s book status was commented on, plus the gem expert at Tiffany’s possible book, which they felt too expensive to “get up…with a number of delicate plates” [MTP].
October 9 Sunday – George C. Bidwell wrote from E. Hartford to Sam arguing on behalf of convicts unfairly charged in England. Sam wrote on the envelope, “From that d___d convict” [MTP].
October 8 Saturday – In Hartford, Grace King’s letter to her mother, written at the Clemens residence, continued:
October 7 Friday – Grace King arrived to spend a weekend at the Clemens residence. From one of the guest rooms in the house she wrote her mother, Sarah Ann Miller King, of the visit.
October 6 Thursday – Several checks below to N.Y. merchants and the Glenham Hotel suggest that Sam was in the city until this day. He may have escorted Grace King to Hartford.
Check # Payee Amount [Notes]
3836 A.P. Burbank 229.44
3837 Tiffany & Co 0.80 N.Y. Jeweler
October 4 Tuesday – Sam wrote a note to Livy on Lotos Club stationery, so was undoubtedly in New York on business (an Oct. 6 check to the Glenham Hotel confirms). He wrote of seeing a Mr. Choate, who had lost a son and now this “infinitely heavier & awfuler disaster.”
October 3 Monday – William Mackay Laffan wrote to Sam about the Dec. 7, 1886 investment in International Telegraph and Cable Co.
…as to the great cable invention…let me explain to you in person, when I see you next, what a Goddamned humiliating and degrading fizzle it proved to be…and how the first of experts are the cream of asses, and how I am now fully trying to get the money back [MTNJ 3: 262n117].
October 2 Sunday – The Brooklyn Eagle ran a short piece on page 15 echoing recent negative reviews of The American Claimant (Colonel Sellers as a Scientist) play.
DOWN ON MARK TWAIN
October 1 Saturday – Francis Wayland, dean of Yale Law School wrote to Sam, agreeing with Sam that Charles W. Johnson should “spend the coming year in earning & saving money, so that he might come to us, if he chose, at the end of that time, with money enough in hand to prevent him from being wholly dependent on charity” [MTNJ 3: 300n2]. See Sept. 29 entry.