'Alone?' he said.
'The reception?'
'Dr. Booker Washington has just come to describe his dinner at the Court. Let me present you two gentlemen. Dr. Washington has little time; if you will accompany him to the hotel, he will, I am sure, give you an interview. Mr. Hartvig of the New York World will be present, too.'
'Stung!' said the younger newspaper man.
'Lunch with me to-morrow,' I said; 'I have some white Bordeaux.'
Dr. Washington gave a prudent interview and the incident was closed. May he rest in peace. He was a great man, a modest, intelligent and humble man, and no calumny can lessen his greatness.
This is a digression to show that the social question in the United States, much as it might have seemed to people who looked on Denmark as entirely out of our orbit, had its importance in the affair of the purchase of the Islands, which then interested me more than anything else in the world.
Pastor Bast was the only Methodist clergyman in Copenhagen. His good works are proverbial and not confined to his own denomination. The Methodists were few; indeed, I think that even Pastor Bast's children were Lutherans. Having recommended one of his charities, I was asked by a very benevolent Dane:
'Are the Methodists really Christians in America?'