“I had scarcely time to give an affirmative reply to Lee’s whispered inquiry. ‘Is that really William Cullen Bryant?’ when there ensued the most remarkable scene which I ever witnessed in my life. I cannot, even after many years have elapsed, think of it without the tears of laughter coming to my eyes. Seymour was a man over six feet in height, and with legs the length of which were absurdly out of proportion to the rest of his body. He appeared to be split up almost to his neck. One of his most famous feats upon the minstrel stage was to suddenly throw one of his feet about a man’s neck and draw the other fellow toward him. Upon this occasion Bryant, in obedience to Gaylor’s summons, had reached forth his right hand, when Seymour suddenly threw that dreadful right leg of his across the table, caught his friend and fellow-minstrel by the back of the neck, drew him toward him and hit him squarely between the eyes. In another instant both men were on top of the table amid the soup dishes, and were snarling and biting and tearing at one another like a pair of bulldogs. Cooper and Dickinson, who were not in the secret, became so alarmed that they got under the table, while I could only hold Lee in his chair by main force. In the midst of the contest the table upset and the poor Englishman was almost drowned in soup. While Bryant and Seymour were making a mockery of struggling beneath the debris, Seymour, by wetting his fingers of one hand, secured a quantity of blacking from one of his shoes, and with this gave himself the semblance of a black eye. When some appearance of order had been obtained a truce was patched up between the combatants, and, after Seymour’s blackened eye had been bandaged, they were induced to shake hands, whereupon the other members of the company, who were in the secret, exclaimed admiringly, ‘Once a gentleman, always a gentleman!’ and declared that ‘a true American gentleman can always be told by his willingness to settle a little difference amicably.’
“Lee whispered to me in tremulous indignation, ‘This is most shameful!’ to which I replied, ‘I don’t see how you say that. There was no one killed.’ Thereupon he amended his remark by saying, ‘At least, it was most unfortunate. I am dreadfully sorry it occurred.’
 |  |
| MATT. WHEELER | DAVE WILSON |
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| WILL COX | CLARK GIBBS |
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| HARRY W. SMITH | WILL LAVAKE |
| “Wheeler & Wilson,” “Will Cox & Gibbs,” and some “Singers”; nearly all“Domestics.” Try to play this on the machine. | |
*****
“The table was got in shape again, and things moved along smoothly and pleasantly for some time, until Polk and Sothern became engaged in apparently a very angry and excited dispute about the merits of the North and South, in the midst of which Mr. Sothern suddenly arose to his feet, and, drawing a revolver, fired it directly over Polk’s head. Immediately a scene of the wildest excitement ensued. In less than twenty minutes twenty shots from revolvers had been fired across the table. Polk, Gaylor, McCullough, Montague, Seymour, Bryant and Sothern were not only firing blank cartridges from revolvers, but were brandishing huge knives over one another’s heads. Dickinson, Cooper and Brown had by this time discovered the affair was a joke and simply added to the tumult. The terror of the Englishman was almost pitiable. He begged to be allowed to go, but his friends were so thoroughly in love with him that they would not let him depart. There was upon the table at this particular juncture a large dish of asparagus, covered with drawn butter, and most of the combatants, who were crawling across the table to carve one another’s hearts out, managed to get their hands into this mess, and, while thus besmeared, they could take turns in jumping around to where I was holding Lee in place, and, bringing their palms down upon his shoulders, would beg of him to be seated and assured him that the difficulty was simply a trifling one, and that they would regret it to their dying day should he leave them. So frequent were these expressions of hospitality that Lee was smeared from head to foot with drawn butter. I shall never forget the spectacle that the lamented John McCullough presented on that occasion. Having fired his revolver, he drew a long Roman sword from his boot, and, with a swirl, cut off the neck of a champagne bottle as if he were decapitating a foe, and then waving it threateningly over the heads of Lee and myself, he exclaimed, ‘Why does not the gallant Florence stand by his friends? Where is his revolver to-night? I have traveled with him through the West, and then he never went without his arsenal and scarcely a day passed without his killing a man.’
*****
“In the midst of the fracas, Seymour, who had temporarily disappeared, appeared in the doorway attired in a white hat and apron, which he had procured from the hotel chef, and announced that the landlord declared that the entire party must vacate the room. He had not finished his speech when everything on the table, including even the large, heavy dishes, was hurled at him, and it is really a wonder that he escaped the shower unhurt. By this time everyone in the room, and especially the Englishman, was a lamentable sight to behold. Each one was smeared and crushed and tumbled and torn from head to foot. Lee could stand it no longer. He got on his feet finally and managed to say that while he had heard such scenes as he had witnessed were enacted in the purlieus of the great cities of America, he was astounded and disappointed to find that they were the custom among gentlemen, and further said that he would have to leave to keep a dinner engagement. It was 4 o’clock. I escorted him to the street and put him in a carriage to conceal his dilapidated condition. When we came to settle for this little joke, we found that our bill was $600. The item for breakage alone amounted to $80.”
Men will sometimes become boys again; and very silly boys.
Note.—Mr. Florence was in error in giving the date of the foregoing as the Fall of 1877. Dan Bryant died in the Spring of 1875.—Author.
Charles Melville was of late years best known as a manager and agent, but in his earlier days achieved considerable fame as a balladist in minstrelsy.