,
which is still revived every now and then, that on a hot Sunday morning
in early summer, he began his sermon in Plymouth Church by declaring
that "It is too damned hot to preach." Bok wrote to the great preacher,
asked him the truth of this report, and received this definite denial:

"My Dear Friend:

"No, I never did begin a sermon with the remark that "it is d--d hot,"
etc. It is a story a hundred years old, revamped every few years to suit
some new man. When I am dead and gone, it will be told to the rising
generation respecting some other man, and then, as now, there will be
fools who will swear that they heard it!

"Henry Ward Beecher."

When Bok's father passed away, he left, among his effects, a large
number of Confederate bonds. Bok wrote to Jefferson Davis, asking if
they had any value, and received this characteristic answer:

"I regret my inability to give an opinion. The theory of the Confederate
Government, like that of the United States, was to separate the sword
from the purse. Therefore, the Confederate States Treasury was under the
control not of the Chief Executive, but of the Congress and the
Secretary of the Treasury. This may explain my want of special
information in regard to the Confederate States Bonds. Generally, I may
state that the Confederate Government cannot have preserved a fund for
the redemption of its Bonds other than the cotton subscribed by our
citizens for that purpose. At the termination of the War, the United
States Government, claiming to be the successor of the Confederate
Government, seized all its property which could be found, both at home
and abroad. I have not heard of any purpose to apply these assets to the
payment of the liabilities of the Confederacy, and, therefore, have been
at a loss to account for the demand which has lately been made for the
Confederate Bonds.

"Jefferson Davis."

Always the soul of courtesy itself, and most obliging in granting the
numerous requests which came to him for his autograph, William Dean
Howells finally turned; and Bok always considered himself fortunate that
the novelist announced his decision to him in the following
characteristic letter:

"The requests for my autograph have of late become so burdensome that I
am obliged either to refuse all or to make some sort of limitation.
Every author must have an uneasy fear that his signature is 'collected'
at times like postage-stamps, and at times 'traded' among the collectors
for