1As of early 1877 Harte’s indebtedness to Clemens amounted to $1,700 (24 Jan 1877 to Bliss, n. 1). In addition, Clemens had advanced Parsloe $1,000 to cover the cost of staging Ah Sin “for its first performance,” and Harte and Parsloe each agreed to repay Clemens one-third of that amount out of their share of the profits. Maze Edwards, who worked for Parsloe’s agent, Horace Wall’s Dramatic Bureau in New York, was charged with collecting and sending the proceeds from Ah Sin to Perkins, who deposited them with George P. Bissell and Company, Clemens’s Hartford bankers (agreement signed by Clemens on 30 Dec 1876, and Harte and Parsloe on 5 Jan 1877, CU-MARK; Edwards to SLC, 8 Aug 1877, CU-MARK).

2

Harte, who stayed in Washington instead of attending the New York debut of Ah Sin, sent the following appeal to Augustin Daly at about this time (Daly 1917, 236–37):

Daly may have transmitted this request to Clemens, advising him to give Harte a full accounting. On 20 August Parsloe told Clemens that Edwards would send Harte a record of “Receipts etc to date, and this will be continued until further notice” (CU-MARK). The following day, Perkins forwarded a letter from Parsloe to Harte, and wrote to Harte himself, presumably apprising him of Clemens’s instructions (neither letter has been found; Perkins to SLC, 21 Aug 1877, CU-MARK). At the end of August, Harte went in person to see Edwards to get “figures.” Edwards let Clemens know, and confided, “I’m glad he’s arrived at the opinion that in the arrangement he is, nobody” (Edwards to SLC, 31 Aug 1877, CU-MARK).