Cincinnatus Hiner Miller (1837–1913) was born and spent his early years in Indiana, emigrating to Oregon with his family in 1852. After leaving home in 1854 he led a peripatetic existence as a miner, pony-express courier, Indian fighter, newspaper editor, lawyer, and county judge. He also lived for a time with Indians of the McCloud River region of Shasta County, California, fathering a daughter, Cali-Shasta, with Paquita, a member of the tribe. In 1862 he married Theresa Dyer (d. 1883), who published poetry as “Minnie Myrtle,” and with whom he had two children. (A third child, whose paternity he denied, was born in 1869.) They were divorced in 1870. In 1868 Miller published his first book of poetry, Specimens, followed by Joaquin et al. in 1869. In 1870 Ina Coolbrith suggested that Miller adopt the name “Joaquin,” after a poem he had written in praise of the Mexican bandit Joaquin Murietta. After a second visit to the literary circles of San Francisco, in 1870 he went to London, where American writers had become popular. His Pacific Poems (privately printed in London in 1871) and Songs of the Sierras (published there by Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer in 1871) made him a celebrity with the English, who were charmed and fascinated by his exotic western exuberance and dress. By July 1871 he had returned to the United States, but he was back in England in early December 1872. In 1892 Miller recalled that he had once seen Mark Twain (among other local celebrities) in the offices of the San Francisco Golden Era, but was “never presented to any of these people” (Miller). Nevertheless, it is possible that he first met Clemens in May or June 1863, when both men were in San Francisco. It seems more likely, however, that they first became acquainted later, perhaps as late as 1873 in London (Frost, 11–12, 26–27, 32–37, 42–46, 51, 54–58, 63–64, 129, 132; MTB , 1:260; Marberry 1953, 31–32, 112; “Joaquin Miller’s Crime,” Hartford Evening Post, 4 Feb 73, 1; “Joaquin Miller,” Boston Evening Transcript, 22 July 71, 2; “Personal,” Hartford Courant, 25 Nov 72, 2). Clemens’s secretary, Thompson, recalled that during the summer of 1873 Miller was

Thompson alluded to Lord Houghton (see note 3).

Clemens’s mention of “this previous engagement” was probably an allusion to a dinner invitation for Sunday, 15 June, from George Washburn Smalley (1833–1916), the London correspondent for the New York Tribune. The invitation, which Smalley wrote on 11 June and probably delivered personally to Clemens at his hotel, was prepared “in case I don’t find you in” (as Smalley noted in the margin):

Clemens probably enclosed this note in the present letter (and retrieved it a few days later). Smalley had been aware of Clemens’s presence since at least 5 June, when he remarked in his “Notes from London”: “Mark Twain has arrived also, but with that natural shyness which distinguishes him has omitted to let his friends know his address. A letter is waiting for him on my desk which, if he does not come for it, I shall have to advertise in The Times” (Smalley 1873 [bib12276]). On 14 June Smalley told his Tribune readers:

Smalley attended Yale and then Harvard Law School, and practiced law for five years. In 1861 he became a Civil War correspondent for the New York Tribune, where he took a regular staff position the following year. As the newspaper’s foreign correspondent in Europe in 1866 he provided news dispatches by transatlantic cable, probably the first ever transmitted in this way. In 1867 he organized a London news bureau for the Tribune, and ensured its success by using the cable to an extent previously unknown. He remained in charge of the Tribune’s European correspondence until 1895, and his own letters from London earned him a wide reputation.

On 11 June Miller wrote to Richard Monckton Milnes (1809–85), the first Baron Houghton, to arrange for him to meet Clemens (Gohdes, 297)—an indication that Houghton was probably the person to whom Miller and his unidentified “literary friend” planned to pay their respects, in company with Clemens, on Friday, 13 June. It is possible, but less likely, that Houghton was to join Clemens and Miller at the Savage Club on Saturday, 14 June. A poet, miscellaneous writer, and statesman, Houghton was the editor of Keats and an early champion of Swinburne. He enjoyed entertaining distinguished friends and acquaintances in all fields of endeavor, and was well known as a patron of literary talent, especially talent in distress. John Lothrop Motley described him as “a good speaker in Parliament, a good writer of poems, ... a man of fashion, and altogether a swell of the first class” (Motley to Mary Motley, 28 May 58, Motley, 1:228). Thompson recalled that “Lord Houghton evidently enjoyed Jouquin Miller, and as Clemens drawled along in his grumpy way I have seen Lord Houghton sit on the sofa and shake with laughter till the tears rolled down his face” (Thompson, 94).