Richard Monckton Milnes, first Baron Houghton (1809–85), was a poet, essayist, and statesman known for his patronage of writers and his championing of liberal causes. Clemens was introduced to him in England in June 1873 by Joaquin Miller. No details of his “hospitalities” have been discovered, however. Having long felt a keen interest in learning more about North Americans, in August 1875 Houghton undertook a four-month tour of Canada and the eastern and midwestern United States with his son, Robert Offley Ashburton Crewes Milnes (1858–1945). Young Milnes had recently entered Trinity College, Cambridge. Clemens probably read of the baron’s visit in the newspapers, which “followed his footsteps everywhere” and “announced his arrival in the various cities of the States in words of glowing recognition” (T. Wemyss Reid, 2:306–14). Houghton arrived in Niagara Falls in mid-August and spent three weeks there, then proceeded to Chicago and St. Louis, where he answered Clemens’s note on 12 September. He explained that he was unable to make firm plans to visit, but expected to be in Massachusetts and New York in October, and hoped to see Clemens and Olivia “sometime ere long” (CU-MARK). Clemens repeated his invitation on 18 October ( L5 , 378 n. 3; “Table Gossip,” Boston Globe, 6 Dec 75, 3).

On 9 September the Hartford Courant reported that Clemens had returned (“Brief Mention,” 2).