“With that I sprang upon him with uplifted knife and grabbed my dearly beloved friend by the throat, and he seized me in a similar way, while he apparently made desperate efforts to cut my jugular vein. In the melee which ensued the table was upset, and chops, ale, dishes, knives, forks and all the other appurtenances descended upon poor Lee in a shower. Brown, the proprietor of the establishment, who knew us both intimately, rushed forward and separated us, and at his solicitation, he thinking we were entirely in earnest, we finally shook hands and renewed our vows of eternal friendship upon one another’s bosoms.
*****
“That was the inception of the famous Lee dinner hoax. Sothern came to me afterward and said he desired to give the Englishman a dinner at the Gramercy Park Hotel, in order to introduce him to the customs of the great American people, and said that the only part he desired me to take in it was to be sure that Lee should be on hand at the appointed hour, which was noon of the following Sunday. To this I agreed. I knew, of course, that some sort of a joke was to be perpetrated upon Miss Neilson’s husband, but I pledge my word that I was not fully let into the secret, and was not advised of the programme. At the designated time I escorted Lee to the banquet room, which was on the first floor in the rear of the hotel office. I found out afterward that by special arrangement with Mr. Judson, the proprietor, the doors and windows had been well padded and covered so that no noise within could reach beyond them. The apartment was lighted with wax candles. Those assembled were John McCullough, Harry Montague, J. S. Polk, Charles Gaylor, all of whom had achieved fame upon the stage; Dan Bryant and Nelson Seymour, the most famous negro minstrels of their day; Commodore Dickinson, of the New York Yacht Club; George Brown, of the chop house, which bore his name; a gentleman named Cooper and, of course, Sothern, Lee and myself. None other than these was present.
*****
“The oysters had been disposed of,” continued Florence, “and the soup had just been placed on the table, when Charley Gaylor arose, and, in very impressive tones, spoke about as follows: ‘Gentlemen, I think this is a most auspicious occasion to bring about peace between two men who, while strangers, were once devoted friends. I do not think that rancor could exist in any heart at a gathering of this kind. To be sure, it may ill become me to act the part of a peacemaker, for, while it is true I have shed human blood, that my right hand has been red with, the gore of another, it must also be borne in mind that I was triumphantly acquitted of the offense, and that a jury of my peers said that I had acted only in self-defense.’
DAN BRYANT
AND
NELSE SEYMOUR.
“You can readily imagine that this took the breath out of my friend Lee, who had been seated upon my left. He whispered to me, ‘What has he done? Did he kill anyone?’ I looked at him warningly, and put a finger on my lips as I whispered back, ‘Sh-h-h! It was nothing; only his mother!’ I heard him mutter, ‘My God!’ as he shrunk in his chair, and then he leaned toward me and whispered, ‘Of whom is he speaking?’ As I didn’t know myself, I couldn’t well tell him, but I warned him off by saying, ‘You will learn it all in a moment. His words might apply to any two men about the board, because every fellow here has killed his man.’
*****
“Just then Gaylor threw light upon the subject by saying, as he pointed with one hand to that clever negro minstrel, Dan Bryant, and the other toward that equally famous delineator of cork humor, Nelse Seymour, ‘Of course, gentlemen, it is hardly necessary for me to say that I refer to America’s most famous poet, William Cullen Bryant, and that equally distinguished gentleman, M. Seymour, the son of the talented ex-Governor of the State of New York, Horatio Seymour, and I now request that these two gentlemen shake hands across the table and let the bloody feud which has existed between them end here!’