May 28 Wednesday – The travelers left Liverpool at 11:30 AM on the train for London. They arrived there about 5:30, and took rooms at Edward’s Royal Cambridge Hotel in Hanover Square. Samuel Thompson “took lodging in a cheaper locality near by” [MTL 5: 371]. Thompson wrote later in his unpublished autobiography:

There was little routine in our daily life here. Sometimes Clemens would dictate in the morning. But there were callers, excursions and sightseeings. He preferred to dictate when fresh from some outing. Otherwise he would forget what he wanted to record. He would light a cigar, walk back and forth and spin it out while I took it down, with an audible grin now and then, the ladies at their needlework. “How cosy this is,” said Mrs. Clemens [MTL 5: 372 citing Thompson, p. 85]. Note: what in the infernal void is an “audible grin”?