Harte’s “piece,” Two Men of Sandy Bar, had opened at the Union Square Theatre in New York on 28 August. Actor Stuart Robson, for whom Harte had written the play, quoted this fragment of Clemens’s letter in an interview printed in the Baltimore Gazette on 12 October 1876 (“Mr. Bret Harte’s Critics,” 1; 22 May 1875 to Howells, L6, 484 n. 3). Clemens had probably seen it on 6, 7, 8, or 10 September, and then written from the St. James Hotel or, on 11 September, from Hartford. It is less likely that he saw the play on 9 September: Harte was prominently in attendance that evening, and had Clemens also been there he presumably would have spoken to him immediately instead of writing afterward. Harte had sold the play to Robson for a $3,000 advance and payments of $50 for each performance during 1876. In a 2 January 1876 letter to Clemens he had lamented: “I have been such a tremendous fool in disposing of my first play as I did” (CU-MARK). See also 14 Sept 1876 to Howellsclick to open link (Harte 1997, 120 n. 1; New York Herald: “Amusements,” 6-10 Sept 1876, 1, 4, 12; “Musical and Dramatic Notes,” 10 Sept 1876, 5; Scharnhorst 1992, 53).