Francis E. Bliss (1843-1915), son of Elisha Bliss, was treasurer and secretary of the American Publishing Company, and became president of the firm after his father's death in 1880 (Geer 1875, 295). It is likely that this statement arrived on 11 January, together with the sales statement alluded to in the next letter, and that Clemens sent the present note the same day. Among those who received books from Clemens were: Chandos Fulton (1839-1904), journalist, playwright, novelist, member (like Clemens) of the Lotos Club, and manager of the Park Theatre in New York; Pamela A. Moffett, whose fourteen volumes went to the reading room of the Fredonia chapter of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, as part of an 1874 gift from Clemens (12 Mar 1874 to the editor of the London Standard, L6, 71 n. 3); C. M. Brooks, a tavern owner whom Clemens and Twichell had met during their “pedestrian” excursion to Boston in 1874 (13 Nov 1874 to OLC, L6, 280 n. 1 top); Sidney A. Moffett, of New Market, Virginia, doubtless a relative of Clemens's late brother-in-law, William A. Moffett, also a Virginian (16 Feb 1875 to Bliss, LNP1); impresario Phineas T. Barnum; possibly William C. Ralston, founder of the Bank of California; probably George B. Lester, a Hartford business associate of Clemens's (see the link note following 28 June 1874 to Dickinson, L6, 171-72); Mary F. Foster, who had requested books for an unidentified library (19 July 1875 to Foster, L6, 514); political cartoonist Thomas Nast and poet Oliver Wendell Holmes, who acknowledged their copies of Sketches, New and Old on 4 and 9 November 1875, respectively (L6: 3? Nov 1875 to Holmes, 580 n. 1; 5 Nov 1875 to Bliss, 587 n. 7); probably Robert Watt, Clemens's Danish translator (L6, passim); James Clemens, Jr., Jr., of St. Louis, a wealthy distant cousin (L1: link note following 5 Mar 1855 to the Muscatine Tri-Weekly Journal, 59, and link note following 5 Aug 1856 to Henry Clemens, 71; Hartford clergymen Twichell, Horace Bushnell, Cyrus F. Knight, and Edwin Pond Parker (see 8 Jan 1876 to Clark, n. 1, and 11 Jan 1876 to Howells, n. 2); Scottish physician and author John Brown (see 17 Mar 1876 to Redpath, n. 2; Harper's columnist William A. Seaver, who had requested a copy of Sketches, New and Old on 2 December 1875 (5 Dec 1875 to Seaver, L6, 598-99; see 16 Sept 1876 to Seaver, n. 1); and Harriet Beecher Stowe. Nelson H. Chamberlin, a Hartford “carman”, received payment for service rendered, but was not sent a book (Geer 1875, 46; New York Times: “Theatrical,” 14 Feb 1869, 5; “Record of Amusements,” 10 Sept 1876, 7; “Death List of a Day: Chandos Fulton,” 12 Jan 1904, 7; Elderkin 1895, “List of Members,” 35, 38).

Clemens added this comment sometime after 11 January, upon receiving the American Publishing Company statement back from Frank Bliss. Bliss presumably sent with it a receipt acknowledging Clemens’s payment of $89.71 as well as Warner’s payment of the note that Clemens had assumed (see 15 Jun 1874 to Warner, L6, 161). Clemens complained that Bliss had inadvertently left $50 of the latter still to be “extinguished.”