May 31 Sunday – Sam was the guest of Col. George Brinton Harvey in Deal, N.J. [June 2 toAllen].
Louise Paine wrote to Sam.
Your lovely picure came out safely and is very popular. Every one who sees it says that it is such a beautiful picture, and that you are such a handsome man. You really should be hiding somewhere to hear the nice things that are said about you.
May 31 Monday — Sam and Albert Bigelow Paine went to New York City and made a startling discovery:
We went down the next morning, Monday, & while I loafed in the Hotel Grosvenor, Paine went to the banks. Sure enough, in the Liberty National he found a power of attorney! A stately one, a liberal one, an all-comprehensive one! By it I transferred all my belongings, down to my last shirt, to the Ashcrofts, to do as they pleased with.
May 4 Thursday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:
May 4 Saturday – Sam moved into the William Voss house in Tuxedo Park, N.Y. [Hill 166]; his lease had begun on May 1. He gave a talk or a reading at a tea for the Tuxedo Club in his honor. He had forecasted the event in his Apr. 22 to Jean. Fatout lists the talk but gives no particulars [MT Speaking 676]. Note: see May 5 NYT article. Lyon’s entry below reveals the tea was held at Mrs. Harry Rogers’ house in Tuxedo.
May 4 Monday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam replied to the May 3 from Dorothy Quick.
You are just a dear, you little rascal! I shall be so glad to see you. I shall be downstairs waiting for you at 11.30 when you come.
It was lovely of you to send me the original MS of the story.
We certainly did have good times in Tuxedo, & I guess we will duplicate them in the new house in the country. We’ll start The Author’s League again, & you will dictate & I will be your amanuensis.
May 4 Tuesday — In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers.
Dear Mr. Rogers: / The check-books & vouchers which Ashcroft will have to place before your expert are my property, & I would be glad if you will keep possession of them for me, when the inquiry is finished. I don’t want them to go back into Ashcroft’s hands.
I shall spend Thursday & Friday in New York, with Robert Collier, for I think you are all in Fairhaven & your city house closed for the season.
May 5 Friday – Sam left NYC with H.H. Rogers on the yacht Kanawha for Fairhaven, Mass. [Lyon’s journal #2 TS 17; Lyon’s journal May 7]. Note: Due to learning of Clara’s impending appendectomy, Sam may have stayed in NYC. Lyon wrote that he was in Fairhaven. If he did not go with Rogers, it is then evident that Lyon did not know this.
Isabel Lyon and Teresa Cherubini the maid continued on their way to Dublin, N.H.
May 5 Sunday – The NY Times included a telegram supposedly sent on May 4 by Sam to Milton Goodkind in a spoof article about Sam being lost at sea:
MARK TWAIN INVESTIGATING,
———
And If the Report That He’s Lost at Sea is So, He’ll Let the Public Know.
May 5 Tuesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: “Eulabee Dix / Mr. Clemens remembers that you want a sitting for his hand./ Margery. / Mustn’t forget that Mr. Clemens is counting on your & Carolines visit. It isn’t entirely selfish” [MTP: IVL TS 52]. Note: this entry is on a separate scrap of paper, undated and placed in this date; it may not relate.
May 5 Wednesday — William Dean Howells wrote from N.Y.C. to Sam
“Dear Clemens: / Pilla is away at Kittery Point, and I can’t leave the old lady alone. But I do want to see Stormfield with its clothes on, and I’ll come sometime before June. Yours ever / W.D. Howells” [MTHL 2: 846]. Note 1; “Howells did not come before October (letter 668, note 2).”
Karl Gerhardt wrote from N. Orleans to Sam.
May 6 Saturday – Sam was enjoying the company of the H.H. Rogers family in Fairhaven,Mass.
May 6 Sunday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:
May 6 Monday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Mary B. Rogers (Mrs. H.H. Rogers, Jr.) who had sent a note [not extant] with Harry Rogers.
To the Shah-in-Shah of Nieces— / Greeting & salutation:
May 6 Wednesday – In N.Y.C. Isabel Lyon wrote for Sam to Frederick A. Duneka.
“Mr. Clemens asks me to write for him & say that as these people want such a small quantity of stuff, & as it would look better to be in the collection than out of it, if you have no objection he will tell them to go ahead” [MTP]. Note: likely some unidentified group wanting to reprint snippets of Mark Twain’s published works, though also unidentified.
May 6 Thursday — Arthur Bennett for the Denver Post wrote to ask Sam to come to Denver for a lecture [MTP]. Note: “Ans’d May 18, ‘09”
May 7 Sunday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Mr. Clemens left last Friday with Mr. Rogers and now he’s in Fair Haven. Jean had a telegram that Mr. Clemens will not arrive as soon as expected. The house needs him so dreadfully. He is so much the master of us all.
Jean is reading now Wolf von Hierbrandt’s [sic] book on the Kaiser, and we find it very interesting. I’ve began my pincushion work.
May 7 Monday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Otis Skinner (1858-1942), actor and a star since the mid 1890s. Clemens came to the defense of Mary Lawton:
Dear little Otis:
So you have discharged her! Your reasons have greatly interested me. To-wit: She is too tall. But she is no taller than she was when you engaged her.
She is too large. But she is no larger now than she was then.
Her voice isn’t right. But it is the same voice that was satisfactory before.
May 7 Tuesday – Sam wrote daughter Jean on May 14 after his return from Annapolis that he spent “the 7 to meet engagements.” He did not specify; no more is known.
Clemens gave Isabel Lyon power of attorney to sign checks for him [Hill 222]. The Lyon- Ashcroft MS contains the full text of this document, as follows:
May 7 Thursday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: “I dined, Mother too, with the Waylands at the Café Beaux Arts and then we went to see Margaret Illington [Frohman] again in ‘The Thief’”[MTP: IVL TS 52].
Charles H. Keep for the Knickerbocker Trust sent a form letter thanking Sam as one of their depositors, allowing them to reorganize [MTP].
May 7 Friday — In the evening Sam attended and spoke at a dinner for District Attorney William Travers Jerome at Delmonico’s. The New York Times, May 8, reported on page one:
JEROME REVIEWS HIS OFFICIAL YEARS
District Attorney Tells of What He Has Done at a Dinner Given Him by Friends.
NO HINT OF FUTURE PLANS
Speaker Says he Still Has Faith In Reform and Wishes to Work for Civic Betterment
May 8 Monday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: “The resting is so sweet. Perhaps the long flights of stairs at #21 [Fifth Ave.] began to shred my nerves and physical condition” [MTP TS 56].
Isabel Lyon’s journal # 2: “Mr. Clemens returned to town—is detained by business” [MTP TS 18].
George H. Warner wrote from Tryon, N.C. to Sam, enclosing a newspaper clipping about Canadian fishing, “Angling for Big Gray Trout.”
Dear Mark Twain / I thought of you when I read the enclosed as the only one capable of doing it justice.
May 8 Tuesday – Ralph W. Ashcroft wrote to John B. Stanchfield with a copy to Sam. “Wright called at my office to-day. He said he has been out to the Coast recently. He said also that Butters had now plenty of money; was largely interested in the Realty Bonding & Finance Company, of Oakland; was actively connected with some new traction syndicates building trolleys in Northern California; and that some of his Oakland property has doubled in value recently.” He gave an address for Wright in E. Orange, N.J. [MTP].
May 8 Wednesday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam sent a cable to C.F. Moberly Bell, editor of the London Times: “I PERCEIVE YOUR HAND IN IT YOU HAVE MY BEST THANKS SAIL IN MINNEAPOLIS JUNE 8 DUE IN SOUTHAMPTON DAYS LATER. / CLEMENS” [MTP].