May 9 Monday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Karl and Hattie Gerhardt. After going on about how he liked the way they kept their finances, Sam admitted, “I am not as business-like, myself, as I ought to be—consequently I peculiarly detest the like thing in others.” Sam told of plans to go to the “Sound-side near New Haven about June 1st” and his hope that Paris would not be as “wintry & hideous as it was at this time in ‘79” [MTP]. 

May 7 Saturday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Webster. His opinion of Slote had, by this time, gone completely dark.

Dear Charley— / The fact that we are into Dan near $900, reconciles me to the other things. He must never have a cent of that while he lives.

   Come up here Monday—we can get through our talk before 6 P.M.—I leave then, for South Manchester [Conn.] to be gone till midnight.—or, come Tuesday, if you prefer.

May 6 Friday – Sam had initially hired Charles Webster to take charge of the Kaolatype investment, but he soon became a general business manager. Samuel Webster writes: “Mark Twain started at once to unload instructions, plans, and bright ideas onto his new helper.

May 5 Thursday – Charles Webster wrote to Clemens that Dan Slote was “either a knave or a fool” and that he was in cahoots with Sneider to “bleed” Clemens [MTNJ 2: 353]. Note: replied May 6.

Emerson O. Stevens (1865-1900) Wrote from Cleveland, Ohio

Mr. Twain,—Dear Sir:

May 4 Wednesday – Charles Webster wrote a postcard sized note to Sam that his letters came daily but he had been too busy to answer them. “I have a good deal to tell you & will try to write tomorrow. I saw Sneider yesterday, he refuses to show me the experiment.” He also made Slote pay up [MTP].

May 3 Tuesday – Sam wrote a one-liner from Hartford to Charles Webster, asking if there wasn’t a payment to be made on the Watch stock before May 10 [MTP].

May 2 Monday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Charles Webster:

“Let Dan furnish money to pay bills with, just as long as he will” [MTP]. 

May 1 Sunday – Sam wrote three letters from Hartford to Webster, explaining that he considered the $5,000 loan to Slote, three days before Slote, Woodman & Co. failed, to be a debt of honor, and that “Slote should have antedated the firm’s note to the beginning of 1878 so that Clemens could get full payment of the debt” [MTNJ 2: 392-3n119; MTP].

April 30 Saturday – Mrs. Gilbert of Hartford billed $54 for “36 lessons in German from Mar. 21 to May 1”; paid [MTP]. Note: Four different Mrs. Gilbert’s are listed in the 1875 City Directory.

April 29 Friday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Charles Webster.