NEW YORK, November 27, 1893.
[DEAR MOTHER:]
The dinner was very fine. I was very glad I went.
Whitelaw Reid sat on one side of Sir Henry Irving and Horace
Porter on the other. Howells and Warner came next. John
Russell Young and Mark Twain, Millet, Palmer, Hutton, Gilder
and a lot more were there. There were no newspaper men, not
even critics nor actors there, which struck me as interesting.
The men were very nice to me. Especially Young, Reid, Irving
and Howells. Everybody said when I came in, "I used to know
you when you were a little boy," so that some one said
finally, "What a disagreeable little boy you must have
been." I sat next a chap
from Brazil who told me lots of amusing things. One story if
it is good saves a whole day for me. One he told was of a
German explorer to whom Don Pedro gave an audience. The
Emperor asked him, with some touch of patronage, if he had
ever met a king before. "Yes," the German said thoughtfully;
"five, three wild and two tame."
Mark Twain told some very funny stories, and captured me
because I never thought him funny before, and Irving told some
about Stanley, and everybody talked interestingly. Irving
said he was looking forward to seeing Dad when he reached
Philadelphia. "It is nice to have seen you," he said, "but I
have still to see your father," as though I was not enough.
DICK.
