of that
time were accustomed to eat their meat raw; now they cook it."
To which the lady answered: "I am not familiar with the customs
of my ancestors, but I know that I pay my chef, who cooked the
duck, three hundred dollars a month."

We were all very fond of Thackeray. He did not have the general
popularity of Charles Dickens, nor did he possess Dickens's dramatic
power, but he had a large and enthusiastic following among our
people. It was an intellectual treat and revelation to listen
to him. That wonderful head of his seemed to be an enormous and
perennial fountain of wit and wisdom.

They had a good story of him at the Century Club, which is our
Athenaeum, that when taken there after a lecture by his friends
they gave him the usual Centurion supper of those days: saddlerock
oysters. The saddlerock of that time was nearly as large as
a dinner-plate. Thackeray said to his host: "What do I do with
this animal?"

The host answered: "We Americans swallow them whole."

Thackeray, always equal to the demand of American hospitality,
closed his eyes and swallowed the oyster, and the oyster went
down. When he had recovered he remarked: "I feel as if I had
swallowed a live baby."

We have been excited at different times to an absorbing extent
by the stories of explorers. None were more generally read than
the adventures of the famous missionary, David Livingstone,
in Africa. When Livingstone was lost the whole world saluted
Henry M. Stanley as he started upon his famous journey to find him.
Stanley's adventures, his perils and escapes, had their final
success in finding Livingstone. The story enraptured and thrilled
every one. The British Government knighted him, and when he
returned to the United States he was Sir Henry Stanley. He was
accompanied by his wife, a beautiful and accomplished woman, and
received with open arms.

I met Sir Henry many times at private and public entertainments
and found him always most interesting. The Lotos Club gave him
one of its most famous dinners, famous to those invited and to
those who spoke.

It was arranged that he should begin his lecture tour of the
United States in New York. At the request of Sir Henry and his
committee I presided and introduced him at the Metropolitan
Opera House. The great auditorium was crowded to suffocation
and the audience one of the finest and most sympathetic.

We knew little at that time of Central Africa and its people, and