amazed than the elder
Worthington when he saw his own son extricating himself from the folds
of smoking cloth.

"John," he called out in astonishment, "Did you go up in that balloon?"

"I came down in it," said John, and would admit no more.

John Worthington was many years afterward included as a belated member
of the Shakespeare Reading Club, an organization which began in 1877,
and held regular meetings, with reading of the plays and of original
papers by the members, during a period of thirty years. This
organization, with the Cooperstown Literary Association, kept up the
intellectual traditions of the village during the latter part of the
nineteenth century.

The Shakespeare Club included the choice minds of the town, and the
study of the master poet was undertaken with becoming reverence. While
Worthington's sisters were already members of the club, and Worthington
himself was second to none in the village in keenness of literary
appreciation, he was notorious for eccentricities of whimsical wit and
humor, and it was only after long deliberation that it was finally
decided to elect him to membership. His first appearance at a meeting of
the club gave rise to an unforeseen situation, for the order in which
the members sat about the table had become fixed by traditions of
precedence, and the attempt to place another chair caused a flutter of
debate in politely subdued voices. Worthington was kept standing while
this discussion was going on, and suddenly astounded the company by
gravely seating himself upon the floor.

John Worthington was appointed United States consul in Malta under
President Arthur, and continued in office under Cleveland's first
administration. This was the heyday of his life. In Malta he made
friends in the army and navy and diplomatic service of many nations. His
conversational gifts and capricious drollery gave him great social
popularity in the brilliant shifting throng that passed through the
gates of the Mediterranean, and his wife, who was Cora Lull, of New
Berlin, was charmingly adapted by nature and acquirements to the graces
of diplomatic life. During his term of service at Malta in 1883
Worthington was instrumental in removing the body of John Howard Payne,
author of "Home, Sweet Home," from the cemetery in Carthage, Tunis, to
the United States. He made a stubborn effort to procure a band to play
Payne's song as the remains left Tunis aboard the ship homeward bound,
but not anyon