Vol 3 Section 0147

1897                                                                            103

figured the $30,000 would pay all the other creditors in full. He maintained the bank’s claim was false.

When they were ready to “knock off half,” he’d be ready “to compromise on that basis” [MTHHR 303-4].

The ledger books of Chatto & Windus show that 5,000 additional copies of More Tramps Abroad, (FE) were printed (totaling 10,000 to date), though the official English publication date would not be until

Nov. 25 [Welland 238]. See Aug. 12, Nov. 25, Dec. 22, Mar. 8, 1898, Oct. 11, 1900, and Aug. 7, 1907 for other print run amounts, totaling 30,000.

November 11 Thursday – In Vienna, Austria Sam finished his Nov. 10 to H.H. Rogers. After thinking about the plan to pay off $30,000 to the creditors for 24 hours, he was convinced it was “sound & rational,” and he wished he’d thought of it “twenty days ago” for it had been “raining & snowing & storming politics here” and he felt he should have been writing about it. He had just received a letter and evidently a photo of Rogers (not extant), and he complimented him on his youthful looks at 58.

Wait till you are 62! You will not be the frivolous young thing you are now. The comedy of life will have played it gay curtain down, by then; —you wait & see.

However—not necessarily. Some people are born young, & stay so. Like my mother, who was still young & full of the zest of life at 88; & like yours, who at 86 is her counterpart [MTHHR 303-4].

Sam also wrote to Chatto & Windus with another name to add to the list of those he wished to receive a complimentary copy of More Tramps Abroad, (FE): Mrs. Helen Lucy Stewart Skrine, in Lochearnhead, Scotland [MTP].

In the Boston Globe, p. 5:

Mark Twain’s Recipe.

The Way They Make Coffee in Europe.

“Take a barrel of water and bring it to a boil, rub a chicory berry against a coffee berry, then convey the former into the water.

Insert the remains of an old cow in a hydraulic press and when you shall have acquired a teaspoonful of the pale blue juice which an old superstition regards as milk, modify the malignity of its strength in a bucket of tepid water and ring up the breakfast. Mix the beverage in a cold cup, partake with moderation and keep a wet rag around your head to guard against over-excitement.”

November 12 Friday

November 13 SaturdayTwo copies of FE were deposited with the US Copyright Office [Hirst, “A Note on the Text” Afterword materials p.29, Oxford ed. 1996]. The English version, More Tramps Abroad,, varied slightly and had an official publication date of Nov. 25, 1897.

November 14 Sunday

November 15 Monday – At the Metropole Hotel, Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to an unidentified clergyman, who had evidently written with examples of what Sam called “mental telegraphy,”; and also questioned the forgotten use of a detail, a mole, in TS,D. The clergyman also mentioned James Payn (1830-1898; English novelist, from 1883 editor of the Cornhill Magazine), and offered cases where suggestion had been made by “unsentient things.” Sam replied:

These mysteries continue to charm me; they never lose their interest for me. I had entirely forgotten that detail of the mole on the left leg until you mentioned it; it startled me to know that it was still in the book. It

SLC used mourning border for most letters from Susy’s death on, then from Livy’s death on.