August 10 Tuesday – Sam’s notebook recorded a score of 38 to 16 for C. against T.W. (Clemens vs. Theodore W. Crane). This is listed as perhaps a “popular parlor game during summers at Quarry Farm” [MTNJ 3: 229].
His notebook also contains an observation with this date about the New York Tribune’s Mergenthaler Linotype machine:
August 9 Monday – In Philadelphia, the court denied an injunction against John Wanamaker & Co.
AN INJUNCTION REFUSED.
August 7 Saturday – In Elmira Sam responded to his mother’s recent letter. He was glad that Orion and Mollie and Pamela were no longer sick. He remembered the weather there on their visit.
August 6 Friday – Back in Elmira Sam wrote to Mollie Clemens, responding to her Aug. 2 letter which detailed Orion, Pamela, Ma and herself being poisoned by bad milk while on an excursion:
Dear Molly —
What a terrific adventure! We are all glad it was no words, though goodness knows it was plenty bad enough….
August 5 Thursday – Sam returned to Elmira (probably this day) from New York, a ten-hour trip.
August 4 Wednesday – Sam did not stay in Philadelphia as he’d anticipated, since the ruling would not come for several days. He went to Hartford for an interview with Mrs. Zadel Barnes Gustafson for the London Pall Mall Gazette, then returned to New York [MTNJ 3: 229n6; Aug. 6 to Mollie]. Note: No interview appeared in the Gazette.
August 3 Tuesday – In Philadelphia, Sam attended a hearing before Judge Butler in U.S. Circuit court. Sam’s New York attorneys, Alexander & Green, argued that a preliminary injunction should be issued to restrain John Wanamaker & Co. of Philadelphia from selling Grant’s Memoirs, on the ground that it was a subscription book and not sold in the book trade [NY Times, Jul 22, 1886 p.3 “Gen. Grant’s Book in Court.”].
August 2 Monday – In New York City, about to leave for Philadelphia, Sam, at the offices of Webster & Co., 42 East 14th on Union Square, wrote to Livy:
Livy darling, I have 8 minutes before leaving for Philadelphia. It was decided by the lawyers that it would be altogether best for me to go to the trial, so of course I go. I telegraphed & also wrote the lady in Middletown [Conn.] my circumstances & that my stay in Philada would probably be several days.
August 1 Sunday – In Lawrence, New York (Long Island), Sam wrote to Livy of his time with the Laffans in their residence:
Livy darling, I am having a divine time here, & am exceedingly glad I came. Have spent an hour & a half in the sea at noon, & we are all going again at 4 pm & finish the day in the water…We undress & dress, at home, then walk down street 300 yards; then wade a ¼ of a mile between two sandbars, & there you are! — splendid beach [MTP].
August – English author William Smith sent Sam an inscribed copy of Morley: Ancient and Modern, London (1886): To S.L. Clemens, Esq./with the Author’s kind regards/Morley, Aug. 1866 [Gribben 650]. (See Oct. 18 to Smith).