theatre-going, I could not accept invitations to dinner; wherefore
those who were hospitably inclined towards me had to invite me to lunch;
and a luncheon party in America invariably absorbs the best part of an
afternoon. A score of these delightful gatherings will always remain in
my memory. The "bright" American is, to my thinking, the best talker in
the world--certainly the best talker in the English language. A light
and facile humour, a power of giving a pleasant little sparkle even to
sufficiently commonplace sayings, is in this country the rule and not
the exception. I must have met at these luncheon parties, and actually
conversed with, at least a hundred different men of all ages and
occupations, and I do not remember among them a single dull, pompous,
morose, or pedantic person. The parties did not usually exceed six or
eight in number, so that there was no necessity for breaking up into
groups. The shuttlecock of conversation was lightly bandied to and fro
across the round table. Each took his share and none took more. All
topics--even the, burning question of "expansion"--were touched upon
gaily, humorously, and in perfect good temper.

It is said that American conversation among men tends to degenerate into
a mere exchange of anecdotes. I can remember only one party which was
in the least degree open to this reproach; and there the anecdotes were
without exception so good, and so admirably told, that I, for one,
should have been sorry to exchange them for even the loftiest discourse
on Shakespeare and the musical glasses. Here, for instance, is an
example of the American gift of picturesque exaggeration. On board one
of the Florida steamboats, which have to be built with exceedingly light
draught to get over the frequent shallows of the rivers, an Englishman
accosted the captain with the remark, "I understand, captain, that you
think nothing of steaming across a meadow where there's been a heavy
fall of dew." "Well, I don't know about that," replied the captain, "but
it's true we have sometimes to send a man ahead with a watering-pot!" Or
take, again, the story of the Southern colonel who was conducted to the
theatre to see Salvini's Othello. He witnessed the performance gravely,
and remarked at the close, "That was a mighty good show, and I don't see
but the coon did as well as any of 'em." A third anecdote that charmed
me on this occasion was that of the man who, being invited to take a
drink, replied, "No