November 14 Friday – In Chicago, Sam wrote from the Palmer House to Livy at 5 AM.

November 13 Thursday – Sam delivered a “snapper” in his speech, “The Babies” (See Fatout, MT Speaking 131-3) for the Army of the Tennessee Reunion Banquet, Palmer House, Chicago, Illinois—the snapper that finally broke Grant’s cast-iron expression into waves of laughter. For Sam it was a complete and devastating triumphal victory, as high as the debacle on Whittier’s birthday had been low. In a letter written at 5 AM the next morning (Nov.

November 12 Wednesday – Sam was on the stage at Haverly’s Theatre in Chicago. Fatout’s description of the scene where Sam offered impromptu remarks:

November 11 Tuesday – Sam wrote two letters from the Palmer House in Chicago to Livy. The first letter recounted activities of the prior day (Nov. 10). The second letter told of meeting…

“…an elderly German gentleman named Raster, who said his wife owed her life to me—hurt in the Chicago fire & lay menaced with death a long time, but the Innocents Abroad kept her mind in a cheerful attitude.”

November 10 Monday – Sam and George Warner arrived in Chicago and took rooms at the Palmer House [MTLE 4: 129]. The pair:

November 9 Sunday – Sam wrote en route (“In a hotel-car, 300 miles west of Philadelphia, 11.30 Sunday morning”) from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, to Livy. He would telegraph her from Pittsburgh, he wrote. He liked the sleeping car and his breakfast, and hoped she had slept well, but was afraid she didn’t. “You must have Emily Perkins or some other quiet body with you.” George wrote on the note: “He is a jolly travelling companion” [MTLE 4: 134].

November 8 Saturday – Sam left Hartford with George Warner, both bound for Chicago [MTLE 4: 130]. He stopped in New York, where Dan Slote told him that the scrapbook business was “booming—can’t fill the orders” [134].

November 7 Friday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Thomas Bailey Aldrich. After some playful prose and jabbing at Aldrich, Sam wrote of the impending trip to Chicago:

November 6 Thursday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Hjalmar Boyesen of Ithaca, New York. Boyesen and family had been in Paris at the same time as the Clemens family. Sam listed the letters he had written Boyesen after being informed by a “fine young fellow” named Bacon that he hadn’t answered Boyesen’s letters. Sam wrote that their “unpacking room looks like a furniture hospital” [MTLE 4: 127].

November 5 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to U.D. at the W.K. Carson Co., Baltimore, Maryland. U.D. had evidently asked for a biographical sketch. Sam referred him to the listing in Men of the Time, by Routledge, or Allibone’s Dictionary of Authors  [MTLE 4: 125].