incident of the dinner, the
delight of all that wonderful table. When she was about to go; I said,
"My child, you are not going to leave me; I have hardly got acquainted
with you." She replied, "You know I've got to go; they never let me come
in here before, and they never will again." That is one of the beautiful
incidents that I cherish.

[At the conclusion of his speech, and while the diners were still
cheering him, Colonel Porter brought forward the red-and-gray gown
of the Oxford "doctor," and Mr. Clemens was made to don it.
The diners rose to their feet in their enthusiasm. With the
mortar-board on his head, and looking down admiringly at himself,
Mr. Twain said--]

I like that gown. I always did like red. The redder it is the better I
like it. I was born for a savage. Now, whoever saw any red like this?
There is no red outside the arteries of an archangel that could compare
with this. I know you all envy me. I am going to have luncheon shortly
with ladies just ladies. I will be the only lady of my sex present, and
I shall put on this gown and make those ladies look dim.

BOOKS, AUTHORS, AND HATS

ADDRESS AT THE PILGRIMS' CLUB LUNCHEON, GIVEN IN HONOR OF Mr.
CLEMENS AT THE SAVOY HOTEL, LONDON, JUNE 25, 1907.

Mr. Birrell, M.P., Chief-Secretary for Ireland, in introducing
Mr. Clemens said: "We all love Mark Twain, and we are here to
tell him so. One more point--all the world knows it, and that
is why it is dangerous to omit it--our guest is a distinguished
citizen of the Great Republic beyond the seas. In America his
'Huckleberry Finn' and his 'Tom Sawyer' are what 'Robinson
Crusoe' and 'Tom Brown's School Days' have been to us. They
are racy of the soil. They are books to which it is impossible
to place any period of termination. I will not speak of the
classics--reminiscences of much evil in our early lives. We do
not meet here to-day as critics with our appreciations and
depreciations, our twopenny little prefaces or our forewords.
I am not going to say what the world a thousand years hence
will think of Mark Twain. Posterity will take care of itself,
will read what it wants to read, will forget what it chooses to
forget, and will pay no attention whatsoever to our critical