No letters written between 1 and 11 September 1872 have been found. Clemens probably spent two nights in Liverpool, 31 August and 1 September, and on 2 September, the day he mailed the previous letter, boarded the train for London. On the train, according to his own recollection in 1907, he sat opposite a man reading The Innocents Abroad, whose failure to laugh at the book, or even smile, “affected me dismally. It gave me a longing for friendly companionship and sympathy”:
Next morning this feeling was still upon me. It was a dreary morning, dim, vague, shadowy, with not a cheery ray of sunshine visible anywhere. By half past nine the desire to see somebody, know somebody, shake hands with somebody and see somebody smile had conquered my purpose to remain a stranger in London, and I drove to my publisher’s place and introduced myself. The Routledges were about to sit down at a meal in a private room upstairs in the publishing house, for they had not had a bite to eat since breakfast. I helped them eat the meal; at eleven I helped them eat another one; at one o’clock I superintended while they took luncheon; during the afternoon I assisted inactively at some more meals. ...
In the evening Edmund Routledge took me to the Savage Club, and there we had something to eat again; also something to drink; also lively speeches, lively anecdotes, late hours, and a very hospitable and friendly and contenting and delightful good time. (SLC 1907, 3–4)
Contemporary newspaper reports make it clear that Clemens misremembered both the name of the club and the day when he was introduced to literary and artistic London: the dinner actually took place at the Whitefriars Club on Friday, 6 September (see the next letter and 22 Sept 72 to Conway 2nd click to open link). According to Albert Bigelow Paine, “From that night Mark Twain’s stay in England could not properly be called a gloomy one.” Routledge, Tom Hood, and
all literary London, set themselves the task of giving him a good time. Whatever place of interest they could think of he was taken there; whatever there was to see he saw it. Dinners, receptions, and assemblies were not complete without him. The White Friars’ Club and others gave banquets in his honor. He was the sensation of the day. When he rose to speak on these occasions he was greeted with wild cheers. ( MTB , 1:461)