LONDON, June 2nd, 1897.
[DEAR FAMILY:]
I was a beautiful sight at the Levee. I wore a velvet
suit made especially for me but no dearer for that and steel
buttons and a beautiful steel sword and a court hat with
silver on the side and silk stockings that I wore at Moscow
and pumps with great buckles. I was too magnificent for words
and so you would have said. I waited a long time in a long
hall crowded with generals and sea captains and highlanders
and volunteers and cavalry men and judges and finally was
admitted past a rope and then past another rope and then
rushed along into the throne room where I saw beefeaters and
life guardsmen and chamberlains with white wands and I gave
one my card and he read out "R. H. D. of the United States by
the American Ambassador" and then I bowed to the Prince and
Duke of York, Connaught and Edinburgh and to the American
Ambassador and then Henry White and Spencer Eddy, the two
Secretaries and the naval attache all shook hands with me and
I went around in a hansom in the bright sunshine in hopes of
finding some one
who would know me. But no one did so I went to Cox's Hotel
and showed myself to Miss Groves and Miss Wather. I went on
the Terrace yesterday with the Leiters and at O'Connor's
invitation brought them to tea. Labouchere was there and
Dillon just out of jail and it was most interesting. I am
very, very busy doing nothing and having a fine time —
DICK.
