More remarks about Whitelaw Reid, and about Edward House: his bringing the injunction against the “Prince and Pauper” play, etc.
As a pendant to my closing remark of yesterday I wish to insert here, from this morning’s paper, the following striking and photographically exact portrait of the President:
MR. Ⓐtextual note ROOSEVELT’S EXACT PORTRAIT. Ⓐtextual note
(Samuel W. McCall, Republican Congressman from Massachusetts.)
You are liable some day to have a President supremely lacking in the qualities of a statesman,Ⓐtextual note and one who is egotistic, impulsive, of immature judgment, a mere glutton of the limelight, ready to barter away prosperity and even his country’s freedom for momentary popular applause.
If he is an autocrat, such as he,Ⓐtextual note for the time,Ⓐtextual note will your country be. Instead of a mighty nation, great in her physical strength and greater in her moral qualities, you may have a strutting, confiscating, shrieking, meddling AmericaⒺexplanatory note.
In the early days Whitelaw Reid and I were friends, but in 1872 a coldness occurred. Reid and Edward H. House had a falling out. House told me his side of the matter, and at second-hand I got Reid’s side of it—which was simply that he considered House a “blatherskite,”Ⓐtextual note and wouldn’t have anything to do with him. I ranged myself on House’s sideⒺexplanatory note, and relations between Reid and me ceased; they were not resumed for twenty-two years; and then not cordially, but merely diplomatically, so to speak; we have met at people’s tables, and smiled and passed the time of day, but neither of us has muchⒶtextual note enjoyed even those slight love passages. I have never invited him, and he has never invited me, [begin page 114] until he gave me that dinner at Dorchester House the other dayⒺexplanatory note. He did it because he couldn’t help it, and he knew I accepted it because I couldn’t help it. I was visiting England in the character of an unofficial ambassador, to receive and acknowledge an honor ostensibly conferred upon me, but really—at least mainly—Ⓐtextual noteupon the United States, and he, as the official representative of the nation, was obliged to take public notice of me. He wouldn’t have invited me Ⓐtextual note, but he had Ⓐtextual note to invite the United States. I left a card on Lord Curzon as soon as I reached London, and went straight from there, in due and righteous accordance with ambassadorial etiquette and usage,Ⓐtextual note to Dorchester House. Reid was diplomatically pleasant and friendly; I also was diplomatically pleasantⒶtextual note and friendly, and it is quite likely that we shall remain in that condition until Satan wants one of us and the New Jerusalem the other; the final result is not in our hands, but each of us thinks he knows how it will be.
In justice to Reid I confess that many and many a year ago I found out that he was right concerning Edward H. House. Reid had labeled him correctly; he was a blatherskite. He was a tall and handsome creature, something over thirty years of age, and had a mobile, animated, and brightly intellectual face,Ⓐtextual note and most charming and engaging manners. He went out to Japan in 1873, (his second trip thither, I think,)Ⓐtextual note and he called upon me in London on his way. I had been helping the London newspaper men fetch the Shah of Persia over from Ostend, I being for forty-eight hours in the service of Dr. Hosmer, London representative of the New York Herald. I had dictated an account of the excursion covering two or three columns of the Herald, and had charged and received three hundred dollars and expenses for it—a narrative which seemed to the Herald to lack humor, a defect which the New York office supplied from its own resources, which were poor and coarse and silly beyond imagination. House was present when Hosmer came to me with the money, and he lightly borrowed it of meⒺexplanatory note and changed the subject. A year or two afterward he wrote me from Japan that his New York banker had failed, at cost to him of twenty-five thousand dollarsⒺexplanatory note, all the money he had in the world, and he hoped I had been wise enough to cash the draft for three hundred dollars previously sent to me by him,Ⓐtextual note while it still possessed value. This was the first time I had heard of the draft, and with this mention of it the incident closed.
But not the intimacy. I did not doubt that House had sent the draft, and that with my customary carelessness I had mislaid it and forgotten all about it. About 1882, or along there somewhere, House came back from Japan desperately knotted up and disabled by rheumatismⒺexplanatory note. He brought with him a bright and good-natured and wonderfully muscular Japanese ladⒺexplanatory note who wheeled him about in a Bath chair, and who carried him in his arms from bed to chair and from chair to bed, weighty as he was, and did it with unfailing patience and serenity, although House gave him a vigorous cursing every time he got a jolt that gave him pain. I visited him in New York. I knew—at least by his Ⓐtextual note testimony—that his alleged twenty-five thousand dollars had come from dramatic assistance rendered by him to Dion Boucicault. He said that he had done more than half of the literary work on “Arrah-na-Pogue,” and that he had received the twenty-five thousand dollars as his share of the royalties. I believed the statement, and even went [begin page 115] on believing itⒶtextual note when a year later Boucicault laughed at it and said it was a straight lieⒺexplanatory note, with not a vestige of truth in it.
However, when I visited House in New York I was looking for a dramatist for “The Prince and the Pauper,” and this principal author of Boucicault’s great play seemed to me to be the very man I wanted; so I proposed that House dramatize the book. He was indifferent, and declinedⒺexplanatory note. I hunted up another dramatist—Mrs. Abby Sage Richardson—and gave her the contract on a royalty. She hadn’t ever dramatized anything, but knew she could; therefore she was satisfactory to me. She made a dramatization, and a marvel it was. She was sober enough, but her play was drunk—quite the drunkest play of the century, and quite the most impossible of representation, outside the madhouse, but DanielⒶtextual note Frohman’s stage-manager took it in hand and reformed it, and little Elsie LeslieⒺexplanatory note played it to the public satisfaction. Meantime, House had come to Hartford, bringing his Bath chair, his muscular little slave, and a young Japanese girl, KotoⒺexplanatory note, whom he called his adopted daughter. I had invited them, and they were our guests during two or three monthsⒺexplanatory note; then they returned to New York. After the play was put on the boards, House notified me, through his lawyer, Robert G. Ingersoll, to take it off or he would bring an injunction suit. He claimed that although there were no writings supporting the claim, I had asked him to dramatize the book and he had agreed to do it, and had now begun his task. He soon quarreled with Ingersoll, discharged him, and hired Howe and HummelⒶtextual note in his placeⒺexplanatory note. Birds of a feather, etc.; Hummel is in the penitentiary, nowⒺexplanatory note.Ⓐtextual note HummelⒶtextual note renewed the notice to me; I declined to consider it; then he brought the suit. The case came before Judge Daly in chambers. I testified by deposition; so did House and Koto. House and Koto swore that when I talked with House in New York about the play, House had eagerly accepted my proposition;Ⓐtextual note that a detailed contract was arranged, and that its terms were so definite and so perfectly understood by both parties that we agreedⒶtextual note that to reduce it to writing was quite unnecessary. House and Koto also swore that House and I frequently took counsel together concerning the play while they were my guests in Hartford. To be brief, and also exact, the pair swore to not a thing that was not a lie. Judge Daly’s decision went against meⒺexplanatory note, upon one ground and upon one ground only—to wit, thatⒶtextual note the testimony upon the two sides utterly disagreeing, the veracity of a sick man, confined to his chamber, was more to be depended upon than the oath of a man who was wellⒺexplanatory note, and at large. It sounds odd, but I have truly stated Judge Daly’s reason for deciding the case in House’s favor.
A temporary injunction was put upon the box-office, and the play permitted to goⒶtextual note on with its successful career, the royalties to be paid into the court and remain there, undisturbed, until House’s suit for a permanent injunction should be decided one way or the otherⒺexplanatory note.Ⓐtextual note Then House and his little family removed to Hartford and established themselves in the Isabella Beecher Hooker cottage in our neighborhood. House thought he would like to have two “Prince and Pauper” plays going, so he wrote one and put it in the hands of the parents of little Tommy Russell, a juvenile actor of good and growing reputation, House making himself responsible for the expense of staging it. It was to open in Brooklyn, and the date was advertised. On that day George Warner, brother of Charles D., came [begin page 116] to our house with news: he had heard Charles Gross, lawyer, say that he had extradition papers and was going to descend upon House and ship him to France to answer a charge of swindling the CréditⒶtextual note Lyonnais out of a considerable sum by false pretenses. That night House and his tribe glided out of Hartford at a late hour, and when next they were heard of they were in Japan.
TheⒶtextual note new play openedⒶtextual note in Brooklyn,Ⓐtextual note and was a complete and perfect and irremediable failure; there was no second night; notice was sent to Hartford, with the request that House come forward and pay the bills, which were formidable—but heⒶtextual note had already skipped, and was safeⒺexplanatory note.
The temporary injunction on Mrs. Richardson’s play was at once removed, and I was told that she went promptly forward and got her royalties out of the court’s hands. I instructed Mr. Bainbridge Colby to go and get my share. At the end of two years I asked him about it and found that he had forgotten to attend to it. I then placed the matter in the hands of Whitford, that incomparable ass, and when I asked him about it, two or three years afterward, I found that he also had forgotten it; time went on, and I presently forgot all about it myself; I have never collected those royalties, and I do not now know what became of themⒺexplanatory note.
I was wrong; Whitelaw Reid was right; House was a blatherskite.
MR. ROOSEVELT’S EXACT PORTRAIT . . . meddling America] The speech given by Representative Samuel W. McCall (1851–1923) on 22 August 1907 at Marshfield, Massachusetts, was widely reported. This extract comes from the New York World, which continued to reprint it on its editorial page during the ensuing week (New York World: “M’Call Fears an American Autocrat,” 23 Aug 1907, 5; “Is This Mr. Roosevelt’s Exact Portrait?,” 27 Aug 1907, 6).
Reid and Edward H. House had a falling out . . . I ranged myself on House’s side] For Edward H. House see AutoMT1 , 598 n. 375.23. Clemens misrepresents this contretemps: House, in actuality, was a casualty of Clemens’s own “falling out” with Reid. In May 1873 Reid, as editor of the New York Tribune, refused to assign House the duty of reviewing The Gilded Age. House had read the novel in manuscript during a recent visit to the Clemenses in Hartford, and he approached Reid, who “abused him & charged him with bringing a dishonorable proposal” from Clemens (SLC 1890, 8). Reid stated his own views on the subject to Kate Field:
I hear he [Mark Twain] says that he has a quarrel with The Tribune. If so, it is simply that The Tribune declined to allow him to dictate the person who should review his forthcoming novel. His modest suggestion was that Ned House should do it, he having previously interested House in the success of the book by taking him into partnership in dramatizing it. There is a nice correspondence on a part of the subject which would make pleasant reading. (Reid to Field, 17 May 1873, DLC, in L5 , 369 n. 2)
Eight years later, Clemens and Howells organized a similar scheme to promote The Prince and the Pauper, Howells offering to review the work in the Tribune. The time was ripe, for Reid was overseas, and John Hay was deputizing as editor; from Vienna, however, Reid warned Hay: “As to Twain. It isn’t good journalism to let a warm personal friend & in some matters literary partner, write a critical review of him in a paper wh. has good reason to think little of his delicacy & highly of his greed” (Reid to Hay, 25 Sept 1881, RPB-JH, in L5 , 368 n. 2). Hay disobeyed his superior, and Howells’s review was printed (unsigned). Early in 1882, inflamed by reports that the Tribune was engaged in a campaign against him, Clemens made notes for a “revenge” biography of Reid; he abandoned the project when no evidence of such a campaign could be found ( N&J2 , 355–56, 417–25, 431–32, 439–45).
dinner at Dorchester House the other day] See the Autobiographical Dictation of 25 July 1907.
I had been helping the London newspaper men fetch the Shah of Persia over from Ostend . . . he lightly borrowed it of me] Nasr-ed-Din, the shah of Persia, made a diplomatic tour through Europe in June 1873. Clemens (accompanied by Olivia, Susy, and Clara Spaulding) was in London making notes for a projected book about England. For the New York Herald he dispatched five articles on the Shah’s visit,which, upon publication, he found had been printed with “added paragraphs & interlineations, & not pleasant ones, either.” The New York Herald’s London correspondent was journalist-physician George W. Hosmer (1830–1914; 4 Aug 1873 to Yates, L5 , 430–31 n. 3). For his work in the Herald, Clemens seems to have received £69 (then worth about $350); House met up with Clemens in London and borrowed £61 from him (about $300). Months later, in a November 1874 letter to Clemens, House wondered whether his recent letters had been miscarrying, among them his “new note for the money borrowed in England,” and offered repayment through his uncle’s firm on Wall Street ( L5: 17 or 18 June 1873 to Young, 383–84 n. 1; 1 July 1873 to Conway, 394; 2 Aug 1873 to Bliss [2nd], 425 n. 1; 4 Aug 1873 to Yates, 430–31 nn. 1, 3; SLC 1873a–e; House to SLC, 13 Nov 1874, CU-MARK).
his New York banker had failed, at cost to him of twenty-five thousand dollars] No particulars of this alleged bank failure have been found, nor is it known if House’s debt was ever repaid.
About 1882, or along there somewhere, House came back from Japan . . . disabled by rheumatism] House, who relocated frequently in his efforts to influence Western policymakers, “came back” from Japan more than once. Clemens confuses one such return, spanning the period 1880–82, with another, in 1886, when House’s chronic gout had become incapacitating (since about 1883 he had been confined to a bed or wheelchair). He arrived in New York in May 1886, with his adopted daughter, Koto, and a servant, Eijiro Ninomiya (see the notes at 114.34–35 and 115.13). Clemens visited him several times, and wrote him frequently. House, who had stayed with the Clemenses in Hartford in 1881–82, was there again from May 1886 through October 1888, staying sometimes with the George Warner household and sometimes with the Clemenses. House became a favorite with Susy and Clara, with whom he kept up a lively and whimsical correspondence when he was in New York (Huffman 2003, 176, 185, 201–3, 204–5, 214; “House v. Clemens” 1890, 26).
He brought with him a bright and good-natured and wonderfully muscular Japanese lad] Eijiro Ninomiya had served House since about 1885. In January 1891, however, a quarrel arose; he left House’s service and joined a New York book-binding business (Ninomiya to SLC, 1 June 1891, CU-MARK).
literary work on “Arrah-na-Pogue,” . . . Boucicault laughed at it and said it was a straight lie] The true extent of House’s involvement with the successful play Arrah-na-Pogue; or, The Wicklow Wedding is unknown. It premiered in Dublin in 1864 as the work of Irish actor-playwright Dion Boucicault (1820–90), but House was named as coauthor in the 1865 American production (and in the subsequent litigation). In 1890, in “Concerning the Scoundrel Edward H. House,” Clemens wrote that “a theatre manager assures me that Mr. House merely wrote a few lines in ‘Arrah no Pogue’ to protect Mr. Boucicault’s rights here against pirates” (SLC 1890, 19–20; “Amusements,” New York Times, 10 July 1865, 4; Tice L. Miller 1981, 82, 171 n. 33; Huffman 2003, 38–39; McFeely 2012, 55–56; N&J3 , 545–46 n. 188).
“The Prince and the Pauper,” . . . I proposed that House dramatize the book. He was indifferent, and declined] Clemens wrote to House, then living in New York, on 17 December 1886:
You had spoken of the Prince & Pauper for the stage. That would be nice; but I can’t dramatize it. The reason I say this is because I did dramatize it, & made a bad botch of it. But you could do it. And if you will, for ½ or ⅔ of the proceeds, I wish you would. Shan’t I send you the book? The work might afford you good amusement when the pains mercifully retire at times. (ViU)
House did not “decline” this offer; he wrote immediately that he was “well pleased to undertake a dramatization” and could start “in a day or two.” (House’s side of this correspondence is missing, except for such passages as he introduced, from his copies, in the 1889–90 proceedings in the case of House v. Clemens et al.) He requested a copy of the book, “the commonest copy you have, as I shall use it roughly” (House to SLC, 24 Dec 1886, transcript in CU-MARK). Clemens sent the book. In June 1887, while staying with Clemens in Hartford, House read to him the completed first act (Clemens later called this a “skeleton of the first act”: “House v. Clemens” 1890, 77). House would later testify that he had reported the play’s completion in September 1887, and that he had been shocked to discover, early in 1889, that Clemens had asked another writer to dramatize the book. He wrote to Clemens, who replied: “I gather the idea from your letter that you would have undertaken the dramatization of that book. Well, that would have been joyful news to me about the middle of December [1888], when I gladly took the first offer that came and made a contract” (26 Feb 1889 to House, New York Times, 27 Jan 1890, 5). Clemens’s contract was with Abby Sage Richardson (for whom see the note at 115.6–11). A week later, Clemens wrote again to House, urgently requesting evidence of any contract he might “heedlessly, ignorantly, forgetfully” have made with him (2 Mar 1889 to House, facsimile in CU-MARK). House replied, and on 19 March Clemens stated his position:
The case is quite plain, quite simple: I have lately made a contract for the dramatization of the Prince & Pauper. I must live up to it unless there is an earlier contract in existence. If you have one, send me a copy of it, so that I can take measures to undo my illegal action, & I will at once proceed in the matter.
I made the re[c]ent contract with simply this ancient impression in my memory: That two years or more ago you signified a willingness to dramatize that book; that some months later, the willingness to dramatize it had modified itself to a willingness to sketch out a plan for me to fill up myself—at which point I lost all interest in the matter—no, began to lose interest in it, & by & by did lose interest in it—for the reason, as I suppose, that you gradually abandoned the matter & ceased to speak of it. I still remember somewhat of the sketch you made for a part of the first act. But I do not remember that it was anything more than that, or that you were then thinking of writing the act yourself. I carried away the impression that you had no such idea in your mind.
From that day to this, if the play has ever been referred to by you, I have no recollection of it. (19 Mar 1889 to House, ViU)
I hunted up another dramatist—Mrs. Abby Sage Richardson . . . Elsie Leslie] Abby Sage Richardson (1837–1900) was inevitably best known for the events of 1869, when her ex-husband, Daniel McFarland, mortally wounded her lover, journalist Albert D. Richardson, in the offices of the New York Tribune. She was married to Richardson on his deathbed. Her subsequent career would be bound up with that of Daniel Frohman (1851–1940). Frohman, as an eighteen-year-old Tribune employee, had witnessed Albert D. Richardson’s murder; he became a friend to Mrs. Richardson, quit journalism, and by the 1880s he was the manager of New York’s Lyceum Theatre. The widowed Mrs. Richardson developed a modest reputation as an essayist and lecturer. On 4 December 1888 she wrote to Clemens proposing that she adapt The Prince and the Pauper (CU-MARK). Clemens promptly gave his permission, in a letter not now extant, suggesting “that she try to get House to help her” (this paraphrase is from “Concerning the Scoundrel Edward H. House,” SLC 1890, 48). Mrs. Richardson replied that what she needed was not “literary” assistance but “some one who knows ‘behind the scenes’ thoroughly, and I can get that sort of suggestion from the manager of a theatre who would be interested in the play if I did it”—hinting that Frohman would produce it; she also suggested child actor Elsie Leslie for the dual role of Tom Canty and the Prince (Richardson to SLC, 9 Dec 1888, CU-MARK). They made a contract on 3 January 1889, Clemens offering her half the profits, and a commitment from Daniel Frohman to produce the play was soon obtained. The play opened in Philadelphia on 24 December 1889 and in New York on 20 January 1890. Between those dates, House brought suit for an injunction against the performances. Clemens himself had not yet read the script written by Richardson (with Frohman’s assistance), and did not see a performance until the New York premiere, at which he made a dutiful curtain-speech. A few days later he wrote a letter (never sent) to Frohman, calling the play a “mess of idiotic rubbish & vapid twaddle” and itemizing its “infinite repulsivenesses”; the dramatist had “merely transferred names from the book, & often left the characters that belonged to them behind” (2 Feb 1890 to Frohman, photocopy in CU-MARK). Critics broadly agreed, though Elsie Leslie’s performance drew praise, and the production would run seven weeks in New York before doing two years as a touring production (“Abby Sage Richardson Dies in Rome, Italy,” New York Times, 6 Dec 1900, 9; Stern 1947, 286–87; Richardson to SLC, 4 Dec 1888, CU-MARK; N&J3, 453 n. 155, 466 n. 202, 487 n. 21, 542–43 n. 183, 543–44 n. 184; Fatout 1976, 256–57; Huffman 2003, 218; for Elsie Leslie, see AutoMT2 , 557–58).
a young Japanese girl, Koto] Aoki Koto (1859?–1939) was a student of House’s at a state-sponsored school for girls in Japan; married in 1874, she was soon divorced. To “save her from subsequent humiliation”—reportedly she intended to commit suicide—House legally adopted her (Huffman 2003, 87–89).
they were our guests during two or three months] Edward and Koto House stayed with the Clemenses from mid-May through June 1887. House testified in 1890 that during this six-week visit he was working on the play and sharing his progress with Clemens (see the note at 115.3–6); this Clemens denied. In this dictation he wrongly places the Houses’ visit after Clemens’s commissioning of Mrs. Richardson in December 1888 ( N&J3, 292 n. 223; “House v. Clemens” 1890, 28; Huffman 2003, 204–5, 214).
House notified me, through his lawyer, Robert G. Ingersoll, to take it off . . . discharged him, and hired Howe and Hummel in his place] House retained Robert G. Ingersoll early in 1889, many months before Mrs. Richardson’s dramatization was staged. House soon dismissed Ingersoll, but he did not hire Howe and Hummel; in fact, they represented Clemens’s codefendants, Frohman and Richardson. By the time court proceedings began, House was represented by Morgan and Ives. Clemens’s counsel was his regular lawyer, Daniel Whitford (Ingersoll to House, 29 Mar 1889, ViU; Ingersoll to SLC, 29 Mar 1889, ViU; New York Times: “Mark Twain Hauled Up,” 27 Jan 1890, 5; “Two Ways Left Open,” 10 Mar 1890, 5; for Ingersoll, see AutoMT1 , 474 n. 69.15–17; for Whitford, see AutoMT2 , 493 n. 2.18).
Hummel is in the penitentiary, now] Abraham Hummel (1849–1926), since 1902 the head of the eminent New York law firm of Howe and Hummel, was convicted of suborning perjury in May 1907. He was disbarred and served ten months in prison (“Hummel Given a Year,” Washington Post, 11 May 1907, 1; “Hummel Leaves the Island To-day,” New York Times, 19 Mar 1908, 5).
The case came before Judge Daly in chambers . . . Judge Daly’s decision went against me] House’s application for an injunction requiring that performances of the Richardson-Frohman play cease, and that Clemens “join” House in the staging of his own dramatization, was decided on 8 March 1890 by Judge Joseph F. Daly of New York’s Court of Common Pleas. House’s deposition quoted extensively from his correspondence with Clemens in order to establish the existence of an oral contract. For his part, Clemens deposed that he had “never agreed to accept” House’s dramatization, nor given him “the exclusive right” to the property, and that after the May–June 1887 visit he had heard nothing about House’s dramatization. Judge Daly granted a temporary injunction, holding that the correspondence of the parties in December 1886 established a contract, and that there was no bar to its being honored (“House v. Clemens” 1890; Daly 1892, 8–9, 14; N&J3, 542–43 n. 183).
the veracity of a sick man . . . was more to be depended upon than the oath of a man who was well] Clemens is recalling a passage in Judge Daly’s decision, bearing upon House’s and Clemens’s contradictory accounts of their conversations after June 1887:
In the multitude of professional work pressing upon so busy and popular an author as Mr. Clemens, much may have escaped his recollection that would not be forgotten by an invalid like the plaintiff, confined to his bed or his chair, and conceded to be a man of methodical habits in recording the details of his correspondence or conversations. (Daly 1892, 9)
The judge went on, however, to say that letters or conversations after the initial agreement, or the absence of same, “in no way affected the rights of the parties based upon the original proposition and its acceptance.”
A temporary injunction was put upon the box-office . . . decided one way or the other] Judge Daly’s 8 March 1890 injunction prohibited performance of the play unless House’s consent was obtained. Clemens was not averse to the play’s closure, but Frohman was. On 11 March House agreed with Frohman that performances might continue as long as Clemens’s royalties were held in an escrow account until legal proceedings were concluded. Clemens was not a party to this agreement, so its validity was questionable (Huffman 2003, 218; N&J3, 548 n. 196).
Then House and his little family removed to Hartford . . . he had already skipped, and was safe] House’s dramatization of The Prince and the Pauper opened on 6 October at the Amphion Academy in Brooklyn. It starred Tommy Russell, a child actor who had alternated with Elsie Leslie in a dramatization of Little Lord Fauntleroy. Frohman successfully applied for an injunction against the production, and House’s play closed on 18 October. Nothing has been found to confirm Clemens’s claim that House lived in Hartford at this time. He certainly did not flee the United States at the time Clemens alleges: House and Koto lived in New York until mid-1892, when they returned to Japan. He was, as his biographer says, “mired in legal sloughs,” but nothing is known of any fraud against the French bank Crédit Lyonnais. Charles E. Gross was a Hartford lawyer ( N&J3, 451–52 n. 150, 582 n. 32; Huffman 2003, 223; Spalding 1891, 119).
I instructed Mr. Bainbridge Colby to go and get my share . . . I do not now know what became of them] Bainbridge Colby (1869–1950), later an eminent statesman but at this time a young Wall Street lawyer, handled legal matters for Rogers and Clemens before being appointed assignee in the bankruptcy of Webster and Company in April 1894. The case of House v. Clemens et al. never came to trial. After House’s departure for Japan, the matter was left unattended until Whitford moved for a dismissal, which was granted in January 1894, and the temporary injunction was removed. In February of that year Clemens ordered that suit be brought against Frohman to collect his share of the royalties, which he estimated at “only five or six thousand dollars” (7 Feb 1894 to OLC, CU-MARK). In 1896, he was bitter against Frohman: “Colby will never collect the money that is owing to me by that Lyceum Theatre Jew” (20 Oct 1896 to Rogers, Salm, in HHR , 240–42). Later, after the restoration of his fortunes, he was readier to forgive, recalling that years later Frohman and he “met in the Lotus Club, & chaffed each other about it, each claiming that the other owed money—but they went to playing billiards & dropped the subject” (Lyon for SLC to Chapin, on or after 19 Aug 1906, CU-MARK; N&J3, 582 n. 32; HHR , 42 n. 3).
Source documents.
World Facsimile of the New York World (the original clipping that Hobby transcribed is now lost), “Is This Mr. Roosevelt’s Exact Portrait?,” 27 August 1907, 6: ‘MR. ROOSEVELT’S . . . meddling America.’ (113.20–28).TS1 Typescript, leaves numbered 3098–4006 (altered in ink to 2198–2206), made from Hobby’s notes and World and revised.
The article “Mr. Roosevelt’s Exact Portrait” is from the New York World, which extracted this short item from an article of 23 August and reprinted it four times during the ensuing week. Our text is based on the printing of 27 August 1907 (6). Hobby presumably typed from a World clipping which had been marked by Clemens, since the headline has been altered. Hobby’s accidental variations from copy are not reported. Clemens made further revisions on TS1 to the article text. In pencil, Isabel Lyon recorded an instruction on the first leaf: “Not to be used for 50 years from 1907.”