“I want to see all my friends at once; and I wish to have it so arranged that there will be no one left out. I hope my friends will bring their young people who would like to come. Perhaps you may remember our friends better than I do; would you mind making out a list for me—so that we can send the invitations. Of course I should like to ask a few of our Lyceum audience who come much to the theatre. Some of them I know, but there are others from whom I have received endless courtesies and I want them to see that I look on them as friends.”
I set to work on a list, and two days afterwards in the office he said to me:
“What about that list? We ought to be getting on with the invitations.”
“No use!” I said. “You can’t give that party—not as you wish it!”
“Why not?” he asked amazed; he never liked to hear that anything he wished could not be done. I held up the sheets I had been working at.
“Here is the answer,” I said. “There are too many!”
“Oh, nonsense, my dear fellow. You forget it is a huge garden.” I shook my head.
“The other is huger. I am not half through yet, and they total up already over five thousand!”
And so that party never came off.
He had many many close friends whose names I should like to mention here, but to attempt a full list would not be possible. Such must be incomplete; and those so neglected might be pained. And so I venture to give in this book only the names of those who belong to the structure of the incident which I am recounting.