July 10 Wednesday – Ashcroft’s notes: “Went to Liverpool with Tay Pay. Attended banquet in the Town Hall in the evening” [MTB 1399]. Note: “Tay Pay” was T.P. O’Connor.

Insert Cartoon. Caption: “Mark Twain and the Jumping John Bull Frog have been having a good time together” [The Liverpool Daily Post and Mercury, July 9, 1907, p. 9].

The Evening Standard and London St. James’s Gazette reported on Sam’s departure for Liverpool.

MARK TWAIN

July 9 Tuesday – Ashcroft’s notes: “Lunched at the House [of Commons] with Sir Benjamin Stone. Many guests, chief among them Mr. Balfour, and Komura, the Japanese Ambassador, were the other guests of honor. Punch dinner in the evening. Joy Agnew and the cartoon” [MTB 1399; MTFWE 108 combined]. Note: the cartoon (by Bernard Partridge) referred to may be seen in June 25 entry. It is not the inserted one below by W.A. Rogers.   

July 8 Monday – Ashcroft’s notes: “Lunched with Plasmon directors at Bath Club. Dined privately at C.F. Moberly Bell’s” [MTB 1399]. From Sam’s A.D. of Aug. 30, 1907:

July 7 Sunday – Ashcroft’s notes:

Called on Lady Langattock and others. Lunched with Sir Norman Lockyer 

Except Linley Sambourne, the veteran Punch cartoonist, and Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge,whom I had known in Australia in ’95, all present were scientists.

July 6 Saturday – Ashcroft’s notes:

July 5 Friday – Ashcroft’s notes: “Dined with Lord and Lady Portsmouth. Forty or fifty guests; two or three hundred came in afterward” [MTB 1399; MTFWE 108]. Note: Earl and Countess of Portsmouth (Newton and Beatrice Wallop). London’s Daily Telegraph, July 6, p.12, “LONDON DAY BY DAY” reported the event plus what the Countess had called a “small party” when inviting Sam.

July 4 Thursday – London. Ashcroft’s notes: “Lunched at Sir James Knowles’s; attended the banquet in celebration of Independence Day at the Hotel Cecil” [MTFWE 91].

July 3 Wednesday – Ashcroft’s note: “Wednesday, July 3. Luncheon with George Bernard Shaw; dined with Moberly Bell” [MTFWE 88].

In London, Sam lunched with Mr. and Mrs. George Bernard Shaw at their flat in Adelphi Terrace. Also at the luncheon were Herbert Beerbohm Tree and Prof. Archibald Henderson, who had sailed over with Sam to gather biographical information on Shaw [London Tribune, July 4, p.6; London Daily Mail, July 4, p.5].

Sam’s A.D. of Aug. 23, 1907 covered the Shaw luncheon:

July 2 Tuesday – Ashcroft’s note: “Lunched with Henniker-Heaton, M.P., at the House of Commons; dined with Mr. and Mrs. Harry Brittain at the Savoy” [MTFWE 85].

The London Evening News, July 2, p.1, reported on Sam’s doings for the day.

MARK TWAIN AT WESTMINSTER.

Smoking the cigar which would seem never to go out, Dr. Mark Twain drove in a taximo to his photographer-in-ordinary, Mr. H. Walter Barnett, of Knightsbridge.

July 1 Monday – Clara Clemens and Isabel Lyon were on board the Red Cross liner Rosalind from New York off the coast of Halifax, Nova Scotia when it collided with the coast steamer Senlac. The Rosalind was not damaged, but the other vessel was, all passengers escaping to the Rosalind. “Miss Clemens says that, instead of going to St. John’s, as she intended, she will return to New York” [NY Times, July 2, p.2, “Steamer Run Down by Liner Rosalind”]. See IVL’s journal entry below.