oduct that enters this country untaxed except the
answer to prayer.

On an occasion like this the proprieties require that you merely pay
compliments to the guest of the occasion, and I am merely here to pay
compliments to the guest of the occasion, not to criticise him in any
way, and I can say only complimentary things to him.

When I went down to the tax office some time ago, for the first time
in New York, I saw Mr. Putzel sitting in the "Seat of Perjury." I
recognized him right away. I warmed to him on the spot. I didn't
know that I had ever seen him before, but just as soon as I saw him I
recognized him. I had met him twenty-five years before, and at that time
had achieved a knowledge of his abilities and something more than that.

I thought: "Now, this is the man whom I saw twenty-five years ago."
On that occasion I not only went free at his hands, but carried off
something more than that. I hoped it would happen again.

It was twenty-five years ago when I saw a young clerk in Putnam's
bookstore. I went in there and asked for George Haven Putnam, and handed
him my card, and then the young man said Mr. Putnam was busy and I
couldn't see him. Well, I had merely called in a social way, and so it
didn't matter.

I was going out when I saw a great big, fat, interesting-looking book
lying there, and I took it up. It was an account of the invasion
of England in the fourteenth century by the Preaching Friar, and it
interested me.

I asked him the price of it, and he said four dollars.

"Well," I said, "what discount do you allow to publishers?"

He said: "Forty percent. off."

I said: "All right, I am a publisher."

He put down the figure, forty per cent. off, on a card.

Then I said: "What discount do you allow to authors?"

He said: "Forty per cent. off."

"Well," I said, "set me down as an author."

"Now," said I, "what discount do you allow to the clergy?"

He said: "Forty per cent. off."

I said to him that I was only on the road, and that I was studying for
the ministry. I asked him wouldn't he knock off twenty per cent. for
that. He set down the figure, and he never smiled once.

I was working off these humorous brilliancies on him and getting no
return--not a scintillation in his eye, not a spark of recognition of
what I was doing there. I was almost in despair.

I thought I might try him once more, so I said "Now, I am also a member
of the human race. Will you let me have the ten per cent.