Sam compensated for the failure the next two days in Chicago, where he and Cable registered at the Grand Pacific Hotel downtown and appeared two nights and an afternoon before large audiences at the Central Music Hall at the corner of State and Randolph Streets. Sam devised yet another ploy to restrict Cable's stage time: to require him to begin his evening reading at exactly 8:00 p.m. rather than wait ten minutes after the hour for the entire audience to be seated. As a result, Sam bragged to Livy, he “talks 15 minutes to an assembling house . . .

January 16 Friday – Sam wrote from Chicago to Susy Clemens, thanking her for a letter and asking her to write “two or three times a week in Mamma’s place…What I’m after is to save her” [MTP].

Sam also wrote to Orion, thanking him for a “perfect 24 hours there, with the sort of social activity which produces rest instead of fatigue” [MTP].

January 17 Saturday – Sam and Cable gave two more performances at the Central Music Hall in Chicago.  Before the matinee performance, Sam wrote Livy:

January 18 Sunday – Sam finished the letter to Livy, writing in the morning and after breakfast adding to it at noon, when he wrote about the Chicago readings: