ss are going
to give me a public dinner on Saturday the 18th?"

In New York, where there were five farewell nights, three thousand two
hundred and ninety-eight dollars were the receipts of the last, on the
20th of April; those of the last at Boston, on the 8th, having been
three thousand four hundred and fifty-six dollars. 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 ($1640), Rochester ($1906), Springfield ($1970),
and Providence ($2140). Albany and Worcester averaged something less
than $2400; while Hartford, Buffalo, Baltimore, Syracuse, Newhaven, and
Portland rose to $2600. Washington's last night was $2610, no night
there having less than $2500. Philadelphia exceeded Washington by $300,
and Brooklyn went ahead of Philadelphia by $200. The amount taken at the
four Brooklyn readings was 11,128 dollars.

The New York public dinner was given at Delmonico's, the hosts were more
than two hundred, and the chair was taken by Mr. Horace Greeley. Dickens
attended with great difficulty,[280] and spoke in pain. But he used the
occasion to bear his testimony to the changes of twenty-five years; the
rise of vast new cities; growth in the graces and amenities of life;
much improvement in the press, essential to every other advance; and
changes in himself leading to opinions more deliberately formed. He
promised his kindly entertainers that no copy of his _Notes_, or his
_Chuzzlewit_, should in future be issued by him without accompanying
mention of the changes to which he had referred that night; of the
politeness, delicacy, sweet temper, hospitality, and consideration in
all ways for which he had to thank them; and of his gratitude for the
respect shown, during all his visit, to the privacy enforced upon him by
the nature of his work and the condition of his health.

He had to leave the room before the proceedings were over. On the
following Monday he read to his last American audience, telling them at
the close that he hoped often to recall them, equally by his winter fire
and in the green summer weather, and never as a mere public audience but
as a host of personal friends. He s