te, he
had told how he was making a clear profit of thirteen hundred English
pounds a week, even allowing seven dollars to the pound. When he
returned to New York in April, after an extended tour throughout the
country, he had still better cause to be pleased with the young
Republic. Says Forster in his "Life":

"In New York, where there were five farewell nights, $3,298
were the receipts of the last, on the 20th. of April; those of
the last at Boston, on the eighth, having been $3,456. But, on
earlier nights in the same cities respectively, these sums
also had been reached; and indeed, making allowance for an
exceptional night here and there, the receipts varied so
wonderfully little, that a mention of the highest average
returns from other places will give no exaggerated impression
of the ordinary receipts throughout. Excluding fractions of
dollars, the lowest were New Bedford ($1,640), Rochester
($1,906), Springfield ($1,970), and Providence ($2,140).
Albany and Worcester averaged something less than $2,400;
while Hartford, Buffalo, Baltimore, Syracuse, New Haven, and
Portland rose to $2,600. Washington's last night was $2,610,
no night there having less than $2,500. Philadelphia exceeded
Washington by $300, and Brooklyn went ahead of Philadelphia by
$200. The amount taken at the four Brooklyn readings was
$11,128."

And only a few years ago there were Americans deploring loudly the
shabby financial treatment we gave Dickens, and figuratively and
literally passing round the hat!

Fifth Avenue's greeting to Charles Dickens, on the occasion of his
second visit, was in the form of the dinner that was tendered to him at
Delmonico's, on the evening of April 18, 1868. The hosts were two
hundred men of the New York press. Covers were laid for a hundred and
eighty-seven guests.

Five o'clock was the time appointed--we were a rugged, early-dining race
in those days--but the guest had a slight stroke of illness and did not
appear until after six. Then it was a limping old man, aged just
sixty-six, who, by the aid of a cane, climbed laboriously up the great
staircase. He was led to his seat at the table by Horace Greeley, and
seated between Mr. Greeley and Henry J. Raymond. The editor of the
"Tribune," acting as master of ceremonies, began the speech-making by
referring to his first discovery, many years before, of a story by the
th