The Rector of Exeter College had invited a group of the leaders of the convention to a luncheon in Exeter and, because I was the only American, I was asked to be present and deliver a short address.
The grounds of Exeter show the good results of the four or five hundred years' care bestowed upon them. In my brief sojourn in Oxford as a student I had been chased out of the grounds of Exeter by the caretaker, under the suspicion that I was a burglar, taking the measure of the walks, windows, doors, etc.
I told this story to a man with whom I later exchanged cards; he was an old man and his card, read "W. Creese, Y.M.C.A. secretary, June 6, 1844."
"You were in early, brother," I said. "Yes," he said modestly, "I was in first." He helped George Williams to organize the first branch of the Y.M.C.A. My story went the rounds of those invited to luncheon and prepared the way for the address I delivered.
The first thing I did on my return from Europe was to visit the last known address of the girl friend of my youth. It was in a Negro quarter of the city.
"Does Mrs. G—— live here?" I asked the coloured woman who opened the door.
"She did, mistah—but she done gone left, dis mawnin'."
"Do you know where she has gone?"
"Yes'r, she done squeezed in wif ol' Mammy Jackson," and she pointed out the tenement.