you will have leave to make a long meal. But when, after your long meal,
you go home in the wee small hours, what do you expect to find? You will
find my toast--"Woman, a beautiful rod!" [Laughter.] Now my advice is,
"Kiss the rod!" [Great laughter, during which Mr. Tilton took his
seat.]

JOSEPH HOPKINS TWICHELL

YANKEE NOTIONS

[Speech of Rev. Joseph H. Twichell, of Hartford, Conn., at the
eighty-second annual dinner of the New England Society in the City
of New York, December 22, 1887. The President, Horace Russell,
occupied the chair. Mr. Twichell responded to the first toast,
"Forefathers' Day."]

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN:--I have heard of an Irishman who,
on being asked by a kind-hearted person if he would have a drink of
whiskey, made no reply at first, but struck an attitude and stood gazing
up into the sky. "What are you looking at, Mike?" inquired his friend.
"Bedad, sir," said Mike, "I thought an angel spoke to me." [Much
laughter.]

Somewhat so did I feel, Mr. President, when I got your invitation to be
here this evening and speak. I own I was uncommonly pleased by it. I
considered it the biggest compliment of the kind I had ever received in
my life. For that matter it was too big, as I had to acknowledge. That,
however, sir, was your affair; and so, without stopping much to think,
and before I could muster the cowardice to decline, I accepted it.
[Laughter.] But as soon as I began to reflect, especially when I came to
ask myself what in the world I had or could have to say in this august
presence, I was scared to think of what I had done. I was like the man
who while breaking a yoke of steers that he held by a rope, having
occasion to use both his hands in letting down a pair of bars, fetched
the rope a turn around one of his legs. That instant something
frightened the steers, and that unfortunate farmer was tripped up and
snaked off feet first on a wild, erratic excursion, a mile or so, over
rough ground, as long as the rope lasted, and left in a very lamentable
condition, indeed. His neighbors ran to him and gathered him up and laid
him together, and waited around for him to come to; which, when he did,
one of them inquired of him how he came to do such a thing as hitch a
rope around his leg under such circumstances. "Well," said he, "we
hadn't gone five rods 'fore I see my mistake." [Hearty laughter.]

But here I am, and the President has passed the tremendou