Python – getting the error “connection refused” in Python? (Sockets)

I'm new to Sockets, please excuse my complete lack of understanding.

I have a server script(server.py):

#!/usr/bin/python

import socket #import the socket module

s = socket.socket() #Create a socket object
host = socket.gethostname() #Get the local machine name
port = 12397 # Reserve a port for your service
s.bind((host,port)) #Bind to the port

s.listen(5) #Wait for the client connection
while True:
    c,addr = s.accept() #Establish a connection with the client
    print "Got connection from", addr
    c.send("Thank you for connecting!")
    c.close()

and client script (client.py):

#!/usr/bin/python 

import socket #import socket module

s = socket.socket() #create a socket object
host = '192.168.1.94' #Host i.p
port = 12397 #Reserve a port for your service

s.connect((host,port))
print s.recv(1024)
s.close

I go to my desktop terminal and start the script by typing:

python server.py

after which, I go to my laptop terminal and start the client script:

python client.py

but I get the following error:

File "client.py", line 9, in

s.connect((host,port))

File "/usr/lib/python2.7/socket.py", line 224, in meth

return getattr(self._sock,name)(*args)

socket.error: [Errno 111] Connection refused

I've tried using different port numbers to no avail. However, I was able to get the host name using the same ip and the gethostname() method in the client script and I can ping the desktop (server).