20 December 1870 • Buffalo, N.Y. (MS: Christie’s, UCCL 11725)
Have just read over, approved & signed that contract, & it will go to you to-night.1explanatory note
Riley is my man—did I introduce him to you in New York? He sails Jan. 4 for Africa. Just read about him in my Galaxy Memoranda for a month or two ago—have forgotten which month, but it is headed “Riley—Newspaper Correspondent.”2explanatory note Riley is perfectly honorable & reliable in every possible way—his simple promise is as good as any man’s oath. I have roomed with him long, & have known him years. He has “roughed itⒶemendation” it in many savage countries & is as tough as a pine-knot. He is the very best man in the entire United States for this mission—& when he comes back & tells me his story in my study (for he is a splendid talker,) I’ll set it down red hot, & that book will just make the “Innocents” sick! I He is to talk to me 2 hours a day, till I have week after week & month after month till I have pumped him entirely dry, I boarding him free in my house & paying him $50 a month beside. I’ll get two 600–page books out of his experiences, see if I don’t. And if you make the first one go, we won’t have any trouble about who shall publish the second one. I mean to keep Riley traveling for me till I wear him out!
All this is “mum.”
P. S. When I teel telegraphedⒶemendation you to send the check for $1,500 it didn’t occur to me that maybe you’d rather have the contract signed first, but that was just likel my thoughtlessness. But send the check to me onⒶemendation New York, made payable to the order of J. H. Riley, & I will forward it to him at Washington, as he desired me to do. If you haven’t sent it yet, you may make it in two drafts,3explanatory note one for $10000 and one for $1,40000.
How is my brother getting along, & what sort of a home has he gone into?4explanatory note
letter docketed: Mark Twain | Dec 20/70 | Author
The contract for the South African diamond mine book (2 Dec 70 to Blissclick to open link; and see Contract for Diamond Mine Bookclick to open link).
Bliss’s letter of 20 December crossed in the mail with Clemens’s:
We send you to day our check on New York for Fifteen Hundred Dolls, payable to your order, & you can endorse it over to anyone you choose to. . . . Did you find the contract at Buffalo on your return & is it all right. If so sign & return at your convenience— . . .
Please acknowledge receipt of check &c. Let me know about Mss. & also about the sketches & come on & have a talk if possible. (CU-MARK)
The check was on the Tenth National Bank, in New York (NN-B). On 22 December Clemens endorsed it to Riley and enclosed it in a letter that went first to Washington and then by 26 December reached Riley in Philadelphia, where he was visiting his mother (Riley to SLC, 26 Dec 70, 31 Dec 70, both in CU-MARK).
MS, Christie’s.
L4 , 276–278; Christie 1991, lot 201, with omission.
The present location of the MS (formerly property of “A Lady”), sold at auction in 1991, is not known.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.