ot fully informed by the committee of the
importance of the occasion. I did not know that the Earl of Aberdeen
was to be here as a guest of honor. I was especially and
unfortunately ignorant that he was coming in the full panoply of
his great office as chief of Clan Gordon. If I had known that
I would have left my trousers at home."

Aberdeen enjoyed it, the ladies in the gallery were amused, but
the Scotch were mad, and Choate lost invitations to future Scotch dinners.

Few appreciate the lure of the metropolis. It attracts the
successful to win greater success with its larger opportunities.
It has resistless charm with the ambitious and the enterprising.
New York, with its suburbs, which are really a part of itself,
is the largest city in the world. It is the only true cosmopolitan
one. It has more Irish than any city in Ireland, more Germans
and Italians than any except the largest cities in Germany or
Italy. It has more Southerners than are gathered in any place
in any Southern State, and the same is true of Westerners and
those from the Pacific coast and New England, except in Chicago,
San Francisco, or Boston. There is also a large contingent from
the West Indies, South America, and Canada.

The people who make up the guests at a great dinner are the
survival of the fittest of these various settlers in New York.
While thousands fail and go back home or drop by the way, these
men have made their way by superior ability, foresight, and
adaptability through the fierce competitions of the great city.
They are unusually keen-witted and alert. For the evening of
the banquet they leave behind their business and its cares and
are bent on being entertained, amused, and instructed. They are
a most catholic audience, broad-minded, hospitable, and friendly
to ideas whether they are in accord with them or not, providing
they are well presented. There is one thing they will not submit
to, and that is being bored.

These functions are usually over by midnight, and rarely last
so long; while out in the country and in other towns, it is no
unusual thing to have a dinner with speeches run along until
the early hours of the next morning. While public men, politicians,
and aspiring orators seek their opportunities upon this platform
in New York, few succeed and many fail. It is difficult for a
stranger to grasp the situation and adapt himself at once to its
atmosphere. I have narrated in preceding pages some remar