Vol 3 Section 0567
for a statement of what they had done to fix things with all of their branches, then he would submit it to Sam. He had argued they should pay a dollar a copy for each unauthorized book they had sold [MTP].
April 9 Tuesday – Sam’s notebook: “Alice Day— dinner?” [NB 44 TS 8].
April 10 Wednesday – John Y. MacAlister wrote to Sam, “just beginning to creep about after a wearisome attack of influenza” so he had no details to offer on the Plasmon Syndicate in London, but heard it was growing “by leaps and bounds” [MTP].
April 11 Thursday – At 1410 W. 10th in N.Y.C., Sam wrote a few lines to Laura Fitch McQuiston in
Fort Hancock, N.J. “I shall lose no opportunity that offers, to serve you. My expectations are small, because of the experiences behind me; but I shall watch & wait” [MTP]. Note: see earlier letters to McQuiston.
Sam also wrote to Mr. Robinson, a rental agent, inquiring about a house Livy had seen which they might rent, and which she wanted to see. He confessed there were “features” of the 10th Street house that Livy was not “altogether satisfied with.”
“I supposed we were likely to remain where we are for a year or so, but since marriage I have never been very good at supposing” [MTP]. Note: Sam mentioned the rental agent on their present house was coming the next day to see about re-renting the place.
Sam also wrote to Emilie R. Rogers (Mrs. H.H. Rogers).
I am bedridden again. Please read the letter of the Czar Tom Reed [Apr. 6]—also the purple pamphlet. And add this additional advantage: If you will buy $5 worth of soap of this boy (& really you must!) you will get one more acre & one more “row of vegetables” [MTP]. Note: Sam enclosed Thomas Reed’s typed letter. Frank Fuller’s Health Food Co. made a soap from vegetable oil and wheat gluten. See Jan. 27, 1902 from Fuller to Sam; the purple pamphlet may have told of Fuller’s soap.
April 12 Friday – Rev. Thomas Chalmers of Manchester, N.H. wrote on Fryeburg-on-the-Saco letterhead to Sam, upset about Sam not issuing a “restatement of the Ament case,” and judging his first article to be “an outrage” based on a “newspaper lie.” “I am sorry you have spoiled my ‘Mark Twain’ Your sayings will not be as funny as they used to be” [MTP].
April 13 Saturday – In N.Y.C., Sam wrote to an unidentified woman [MTP].
Dear Madam:
It is such a disappointment. From the tone, I supposed it was God; when I reached the signature I found it was only you.
Your pulverized & repentant / Mark Twain / Apl. 13 [MTP].
April 14 Sunday – In N.Y.C., Sam wrote to Mary Elizabeth Phillips, observing that “even the kindliest-intended sketches” of himself made him feel ashamed, but the one she’d sent made him “proud. It may not be me, but it’s what I would like to be anyway” [MTP].
April 15 Monday – In N.Y.C., Sam wrote to Laurence Hutton, who had become a professor at Princeton University.
Dear Professor: / I am glad to hail you by that handsome title, and we all congratulate you cordially! Mrs. Clemens puts in her head and interrupts to say, “Give them my love, my best love, and do your dictating a
SLC used mourning border for most letters from Susy’s death on, then from Livy’s death on.