November 2 Thursday – Karl Gerhardt wrote to Sam and Livy having rec’d the new letter of credit for £100, and promised that “every cent will be used to the best advantage” [MTP].
October 31 Tuesday – Karl Gerhardt wrote to Sam and Livy, excited about their new professor for sculpture, M. Falguera, “one of the strongest French sculptors of the day.” He enclosed a notice from “the Boston Advertiser regarding a proposed equestrian statue of Paul Revere”—didn’t Sam think it a good idea for him to enter the contest for the Revere statue? [MTP].
October 30 Monday – In Hartford Sam typed a one-liner to Charles Webster. “Dear Charlie, Give the man the papers he wants, or kill him, I don’t care which” [MTBus 204].
Orion Clemens wrote from Keokuk.
My Dear Brother: / The $150 came from Perkin’s to-day.
I moved into my office to-day. Been with Marshall some weeks. Didn’t have fires; caught cold; couldn’t study; they talked too much.
October 29 Sunday – Sam wrote to Robert D. Brain, letter not extant but referred to in Brain’s Oct. 30.
October 27 Friday – In Hartford Sam typed a note to Andrew Chatto asking for maps that they couldn’t find and that his governess wanted. Could they be shipped? [MTP]. The Clemens children’s governess since 1880 was Lilly Gillette Foote.
October 24 Tuesday – Charles Webster acknowledged Sam’s check for $500, which was used to purchase a list of Western agents from H.N. Hinckley, who had been sent by Elisha Bliss to open a Chicago branch of Am. Publishing Co. The lists held about 500 agents who had sold Sam’s prior books, and another 7,000 persons who’d applied for agency to sell the books. Also included was Hinckley’s unsold supply of older books.
October 23 Monday – In Hartford, Sam typed a letter to Hattie and Karl Gerhardt.
“I STARTED A LETTER OF CREDIT FOR A HUNDRED POUNDS TO PARIS ABOUT THREE DAYS AGO, AND INTENDED TO WRITE YOU AT THE SAME TIME; BUT HAVE BEEN DELAYED IN VARIOUS WAYS. IN FACT MY PRINCIPAL DELAY COMES OF THE UNFINISHED AND APPARENTLY UNFINISHABLE CONDITION OF MY BOOK” [MTP].
George W. Cable attended a Monday Evening Club with Sam [MTHL 1: 420n4].
October 21 Saturday – In Hartford, Sam typed a response to his sister Pamela Moffett all about autographs and how he hated to give them out. He thought it a silly practice, save for those he knew. His sister had requested an autograph or a book for the Schroeters (Schroters), who had been business partners and neighbors to the Moffetts at the outbreak of the Civil War. It was the Schroeter house that Sam “hid out” in prior to running off to join the Marion Rangers.
October 20 Friday – George Gebbie wrote from Phila to Sam wanting to “renew the discussion” about the “Library of Humor” book after not corresponding for a year [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “Return no answer to this fraud.”
October 19 Thursday – Sam gave a speech, titled “City of Hartford” for the Reception for Worcester Continentals at Allyn Hall, Hartford.