June 22 Saturday – At Quarry Farm Sam wrote two letters to H.H. Rogers. In the first, an obvious response to one of Rogers, not extant.
I have made some notes, which I enclose. I wish I could come down and talk with you and Colby and the Harpers, but I can’t. I shan’t be able to put my clothes on till — I don’t know when. Carbuncles are extravagantly slow.
My main objection is a the absence of a time-limit.
June 24 Monday – The Elmira Advertiser p.5 ran a short interview conducted on June 23 about a famous murder case in Brooklyn: “The Henry Murder: Mark Twain Theorizes on the Bloody Hand Prints Found.” Sam cites the study and book (Finger Prints 1892) of Sir Francis Galton, who introduced the use of fingerprints as a way of identification. Sam had studied Galton’s book and claimed it even changed his manuscript during the writing of PW [Scharnhorst, Interviews 148-50; Gribben 251].
June 25 Tuesday – At Quarry Farm Sam wrote to George Washington Cable, who had written (not extant) praising the JA installment in Harper’s Monthly.
You make me feel ever so proud & pleased. I wrote the story from love, & one particularly likes to have one’s pets praised.
June 26 Wednesday – At Quarry Farm, Sam was served with a subpoena brought by Thomas Russell & Son, printers and bookbinders, a creditor of Webster & Co. This was published on June 4 in the NY Times (see entry); the debt was $5,046. This was the subject of Sam’s PS finish for his letter to Rogers he began June 25:
June 27 Thursday – Livy wrote to H.H. Rogers: “I have been quite distressed today by the paper that was served on Mr. Clemens and I feel that in some way these Webster & Co. matters must be arranged.” She confided that Sam did not know she was writing him [MTP].
June 28 Friday – Frank Hall Scott for Century Co. wrote with regret that Sam was unable to submit pieces for the magazine and hoped the trip would prove good medicine [MTP].
June 29 Saturday – John Horne an autograph seeker in Glasgow, Scotland wrote to Sam, responding to Sam’s June 19 answer. Horne asked if Sam could and would “bless” him with James Russell Lowell’s autograph, since Sam had mentioned getting all those autographs on April Fools’ Day in 1884 [MTP].
Sam also responded to a letter from H.H. Rogers, evidently suggesting Sam simply go on his tour and ignore the subpoenas, or perhaps simply asking the what-if.
June 30 Sunday – In Elmira at Quarry Farm Sam wrote again to H.H. Rogers on the matter of a meeting with his creditors. Charles Langdon had taken Sam’s last letter and was intending to go to New York where he would deliver it to Rogers. (Langdon was taking medical treatments in the City during this period.)
July – At Quarry Farm Sam wrote to Franklin G. Whitmore, Sam forwarded John Horne’s June 29 letter and asked Whitmore to write Horne after July 14th and tell him that Sam had left for Australia. Sam also asked Whitmore to call on John Day if the rent wasn’t paid on the Farmington Ave. house by the 13th. [MTP].
July 1 Monday – At Quarry Farm Sam wrote to Frank Bliss.
Yours of June 29 received [not extant]. I have been considering and shall not close with the offer of $12000, for 12 magazine articles until I have taken plenty of time to make up my mind. I’ve got to go to New York if I possibly can, before July 10, and if I go I will telegraph you and have a talk with you then.
Sam thought he could travel if the doctor consented [MTP].
July 2 Tuesday – At Quarry Farm Sam wrote on a series of three stones, a “Contract” with Julia J. Beecher (Mrs. Thomas K. Beecher). Stones 1-3:
If you prove right and I prove wrong
A million years from now,
In language plain and frank and strong
My error I’ll avow
To your dear mocking face.
If I prove right, by God his grace,
Full sorry I shall be,
For in that solitude no trace
There’ll be of you and me
Nor of our vanished race.
July 3 Wednesday – At Quarry Farm Sam wrote to John D. Adams of Harper & Brothers about the proofs and location of an “ennobling scene” for the forthcoming Book II of JA in the magazine’s serial run. Sam also confided that he was “not out of bed yet.”
July 5 Friday – At Quarry Farm Sam began a short note to Robert Underwood Johnson of Century Magazine, that he finished with a PS the next day, July 6.
I am still in bed with my Pullman carbuncle (41st day), but I’ve ground out some 2,500 words of nonsense (& fact) about the bicycle. I could have strung it out indefinitely — but not with advantage, I think [MTP].
July 6 Saturday – In Elmira at Quarry Farm Sam finished his July 5 note to Robert Underwood Johnson of Century Magazine with a PS that he had no time to revise the bicycle piece as the carriage was starting for town that moment. Johnson would have to send him a proof, and best to send it to Quarry Farm before July 10 [MTP].
July 8 Monday – At Quarry Farm Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers, again delayed on coming to New York.
July 10 Wednesday – Sam left Elmira without Livy for New York to be examined by attorneys for Thomas Russell the next day. His earlier plans were to stay at the Everett House.
July 11 Thursday – Sam was examined by attorneys. The Boston Daily Globe sensationalized the session, running this article on p.6, July 12, 1895.
“MARK TWAIN” IS RUINED.
Failure of Publishing House in Which He Was a Partner Involved
the Humorist’s Private Fortune.
NEW YORK, July 11 — “Mark Twain,” otherwise Samuel L. Clemens, the humorist, was examined in supplementary proceedings this afternoon at the office of Stern & Rushmore, his lawyers, at 40 Wall st.
July 12 Friday – Sam gave a reading to 700 boys at the House of Refuge, Randall’s Island, New York as a rehearsal for his tour to kick off in Cleveland on July 15 [Fatout, MT Speaking 662]. Note: The House of Refuge was a reformatory for incorrigible boys.
July 13 Saturday – Sam left New York on the train for Elmira. In his letter of July 14 to H.H. Rogers, he described seeing Charles E. Rushmore of Stern & Rushmore, attorneys, on the train.
…told him I didn’t want any annoyance at Cleveland;…but he said I could rest easy; said he was sure Wilder [Thomas Russell’s attorney] was now satisfied that I had no concealed property & would leave me alone in Cleveland.
July 14 Sunday – At Quarry Farm, Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers, declaring he’d “thrown up the Russell sponge,” meaning he was ready to compromise with Thomas Russell, printer, or pay him in full, the $5,046 owed. He reported Livy’s reaction to newspaper reports of his supplementary examination on July 11 at Stern & Rushmore’s office: