May 2 Tuesday – Dr. John Brown of Scotland, favored friend of the Clemens family died. Sam would learn of the death before he left New Orleans, in a “damp newspaper.”

Sam wrote from New Orleans to Livy:

…we are still booming along in the sociabilities, & find it a pretty energetic business & rather taxing to the strength…./ We are reduced to lying, at last. We pretend to have engagements which we have not, in order to escape others which we want to avoid.

A big, fast steam-tug was offered us, & this morning we steamed up & down the river a couple of hours at a tremendous rate. I did the steering myself….I took along a couple of old-time pilots as our guests.

We dine with the editors tonight, (& pretend to go down to the Mouth of the river to-morrow, but shall lie abed & sleep, instead.) [MTP].

In the evening, Edward Burke hosted a dinner for Sam and James R. Osgood at John’s Restaurant [Kruse 7], John Strenna’s popular restaurant on the corner of Canal and Dryades Streets [MTNJ 2: 461, 463]. Among the guests was Page Mercer Baker (1840-1910), along with Burke an editor for the Times-Democrat who later wrote Sam about the good memories of the evening, about “the good stories over wine, the music (in which Cables thin but melodious tenor mingled sweetly with [L. André] Burthe’s magnificent barytone)” [MTNJ 2: 468n128]. See Baker’s of Sept. 26.

Dr. Joseph Chase, Jr. Wrote from Concord, N.H. to ask “something concerning yourself, from you personally” for a paper on “American Humorists” he had to write [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “Answered”

James Leibert wrote from Bethlehem, Penn. to ask for “a short article” for their Seminary [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “O Geeminy!”