May 12 Monday – Sam wrote from Paris to Robert M. Hooper:

…previous engagement debars us the pleasure of accepting Mr. & Mrs. Heuston’s kind invitation, but we shall hold the 17th open, so as not to miss the entertainment at your house.

I’m as sorry as you are that you were not on the Tribune, because toward the last I began to get my hand in, & if you had been there I would have won all of your money & part of your clothes [MTLE 4: 57].

Hooper, evidently a card player, was also the U.S. vice-consul-general to Paris; his wife, Lucy Hamilton Hooper was a correspondent for several newspapers, a poet and author.

From Sam’s notebook:

“Tourgènieff called & spent evening. Brought me one of his books. Gave him Tom Sawyer” [MTNJ 2: 309].

Noah Brooks (1830-1903), editor and biographer of Lincoln,  wrote to Sam.

My dear Clemens: / I suppose I am partly at fault for the neglect to give you a fair understanding of your relation to the Lotos Club. When you went away, you said you wanted to resign. I dissuaded you, and told you that you could be put on half dues during your absence. This was done, and you have since been charged at the rate of $5 per quarter for part of the time, and $6.25 for the rest of the time, the dues having been meanwhile raised from $40 to $50 per year, for resident members. You will see that it would be impossible for anybody to give in your verbal resignation, even if you had authorized him. But you did not authorize me; on the other hand, you have been put on half dues, as you and I certainly did agree should be done. I ought to have explained this at length, when you wrote, on a former occasion, but I overlooked it in the multiplicity of things which I have on hand.

      Now, then—you owe $41.25 dues to July 1, 1879, and are charged with annual dues at the rate of $25. I don’t want you to resign; and I am partly to blame for your misunderstanding and I will do in the premises whatever you say is right.

      With regards to Mrs. Clemens / Yours ever… [MTP].