Vol 3 Section 0932

giving me a call, but that’s one of the fashionable habits they have—they never come around when you want to see them. I am going to leave here in a little while, and they will have to hustle if they expect to see me.

“Burglary, like many other things, has got to be a science, and the man who is a success at it ought to be respected. He has a family to support, maybe—little babies and a wife, who need nice clothes and things— and it is only fair that he should be given a chance to ply his chosen trade. It is cruel to put him in jail with forgers and common swindlers.”

Since the last visit of burglars to Riverside all of the houses have been provided with burglar alarm systems, and in some of the larger houses watchmen are employed.

On their last sortie they broke into the Appleton mansion, in which the novelist lives, and stole oil paintings and other articles, valued at about $500 [Neider, Life As I Find It 365-6]. Note: also in Scharnhorst without the full sub-headings given here.

June 16 Tuesday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to Annie E. Trumbull.

Livy instructs me to thank you heartily & affectionately for your book, which has just arrived. She has had a chance to read only the two or three opening pages, but she finds them just delicious, & sees you in them & hears you talk. And itI am to send you her unfading & indestructible love.

Sho! Dern’d if I don’t believe I was to have written this letter in the first person & she to sign it. Is that spelt right? Some spell it with a u, but not the best authorities, I think. Will you ask Twichell? [MTP]. Note: Trumbull’s book was likely Life’s Common Way (1903) on the strength of “Books Left with A. B. Paine”, by Gribben, p. 913. See others in Gribben p.715. Sam referred to the book by name in his July 18 to Harriet Whitmore.

Sam also wrote to Harriet E. Whitmore (Mrs. Franklin G. Whitmore).

Livy says she wants to give you the “Mercury,” & will be very glad if you will accept it, with her love.

I wish to thank you & Brer Whitmo’ heartily for the charming time I had in your house, & express the hope that it may be my privilege to repeat it some time.

Mrs. Clemens is cheerful & is very much her old self. She is progressing [MTP].

Sam also wrote to Frank N. Doubleday “I got the letter—many thanks. Do you want elegant extracts outen my books? Bliss might deny you, and the Colonel [Harvey] might, but I’ll say yes, and be responsible” [MTP].

Sam’s notebook: “Mr. Coe, Waldorf / 7.30, dinner” [NB 46 TS 19].

June 17 Wednesday

June 18 Thursday

June 19 Friday

June 20 Saturday

June 21 Sunday – James Burton Pond (1838-1903), longtime tour manager of Mark Twain and others, died at his home in Jersey City, N.J. after an amputation of his leg on June 17. The New York Times reported his death on page 1, Jan. 22. Funeral services were to be held at Pond’s home on Tuesday evening, June 23 with burial at Woodlawn Cemetery, New York. Sam, who had recently been a pallbearer at the funerals of Charles Dudley Warner, J.D.F. Slee, and Frank Stockton, may have attended the services, though he made no mention of it in his NB. One source claims Sam did not hear of Pond’s death for months.

June 21, after – Sam wrote a letter to William Webster Ellsworth. “A fund? Raise it? It is easier to raise the dead. A pension is the thing. I have tried it, & I know. Get people to put up a monthly sum…” [MTP: American Art

Assoc.—Anderson Galleries catalog, 9 Dec. 1936, Item 146].

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