To William A. Seaver
26 February 1875 • Hartford, Conn.
(MS: WU, UCCL 01198)

Hartford, Feb. 26

My Dear S‸eaver:‸ ir:

Yes sir! You shall know the figure; & to make sure it shan’t be forgotten, I’ll tell the manager of the affair to tell you also. If he forgets it I will kill him.1

As this is honestly the last lecture I [ever ever ]expect to deliver, I would like to see it corral as much cash as possible.

I am under promise to give one other charity a lift, but I expect to succeed in begging off, as it is not in our town.2

Bless you I don’t ever fool away any chances to hunt you & John Hay up. You ought to know [that. I ]had a whole family under my wing the last two times I was down there—so I didn’t even try to go to my meals.

Ys Ever

Mark.

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1 In a letter not known to survive, Seaver had offered to report the result of Clemens’s upcoming charity lecture.

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2 Unidentified.

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, Rare Book Department, Memorial Library, University of Wisconsin, Madison (WU).

Previous publication: L6, 395.

Provenance:Norman D. Bassett, a Madison alumnus, owned the MS by October 1942. He donated his Mark Twain collection to WU on 9 July 1955.

Emendations and textual notes:

ever ever • ever | ever

that. I • that.—|I