“Right you are,” replied Mr. Moxon, “and I do not think anyone is to be blamed for it. Washington is the city where I was born and bred and it fills a deep place in my heart, but the club is still young and my correspondent is covering the ground systematically, and you will all be heard from. Indeed, you will all have a chapter in the very near future, and if you will give me a little ‘dope’ on some of our present members who are bashful, I will get you all in excepting your photographs, very soon.”
Peter DeGraw, Ham. Young and Ernest Emery then locked arms for a walk down the Rue for the purpose of interviewing other old members of the guard from Washington and procuring additional data.
“Hello, there’s Bob Bender, newly arrived and looking as fresh as a clam. He was an attendant at the recent reunion of the Old Timers’ Association in New York and ought to be full of good information. Let’s stop him and get the news.”
Bob Bender was delighted to greet his old friends again and listened with much interest to the experiences of his companions and, in turn, gave them the latest news from Washington.
“Yes, George C. Maynard is there, looking as noble as ever, and Judd Thompson, C. F. Thompson, H. McKeldin, John H. Miller and Dennis Brown are still in the harness. Washington has gone dry.”
Mr. Bender went on to say that he had been over to New York recently, but as there was going to be a New York chapter in the Pleiades Club very soon, and also a Boston, Philadelphia and Baltimore number, he did not care to spoil a good story by anticipating the future.
Mr. Bender locked arms with his comrades in their interesting walk, and as they passed Aeolianville they stopped to shake hands with William T. Loper, who was being entertained by that most wonderful orator, Henry Ward Beecher.
The quartette, composed of Messrs. Emery, DeGraw, Bender and Young, stopped for a minute. They had overheard some “shop talk.”
“Yes,” Loper was saying, “you are the only fellow who ever rushed me. Don’t you remember your sermon on ‘Agreeing with your enemy,’ and none of us could keep up with you? I came nearly throwing up my job on that very occasion.” It was stated for the benefit of those who were not acquainted with the facts that each Sunday Mr. Loper went from Washington to New York to copy Henry Ward Beecher’s sermon. He then went to the telegraph office at 195 Broadway, New York, and the sermons were telegraphed from his note book to the principal papers in the United States by Mr. Loper himself, who was one of the finest operators as well as stenographers of his day, and one of the few shorthand men who could copy Henry Ward Beecher.
“Hi, hi, 73,” came from the merry four and Loper smiled all over, while Beecher asked what was meant by “73.”