Clemens had just received two statements from the American Publishing Company, evidently accompanied by a note (now lost) from Frank Bliss, Elisha Bliss’s son and treasurer of the company, mentioning that the company had a new address. It now occupied “more spacious and eligible” offices at 116 Asylum Street, having moved from 149 Asylum (“New Quarters,” American Publisher 2 May 72: 4). One of the statements, an accounting of his Innocents Abroad sales, (mistakenly) dated 1 April, was written on 116 Asylum Street letterhead, which Clemens must not have noticed. The “accompanying statement” of his personal account was written on 149 Asylum Street letterhead and dated 15 April (Francis E. Bliss to SLC, 15 Apr misdated 1 Apr 72, CU-MARK; American Publishing Company to SLC, 15 Apr 72, CU-MARK).

The enclosure has not survived. Smythe had impressed Clemens as a “dry, sensible genius” when they first met at a banquet for Clemens in Pittsburgh on 30 October 1869 ( L3 , 376, 378, 382 n. 5). Smythe was then with the Pittsburgh Dispatch. Clemens jotted Smythe’s name and “Commercial, Pittsburg” in his lecture appointment book for 1871–72, probably after seeing him in that city between 11 and 14 January (Redpath and Fall, 16; Boone: 1871, 470; 1872, 452). This request—and the one in the next letter, to Redpath—signaled a change in Clemens’s attitude toward publicizing Roughing It. As he told David Gray many years later, he had feared at the time of publication “that it would be considered pretty poor stuff, & that therefore I had better not let the press get a chance at it” (10 June 80, NHyF, in RI 1993 , 797). Now, reassured by praise from friends and impressive sales figures, he was willing for it to receive more critical attention (see the next letter, n. 4, and 4 Mar 73 to Blissclick to open link; see also RI 1993 , 797–98, 882–90).