To-morrow morning I leave for Boston at ten o’clock to begin the lecture tour in that city, or, to use an Americanism, to “open the show.”
.......
There is a knock at the door.
HALL PORTER.
It is the hall porter with a letter: an invitation to dine with the members of the Clover Club at Philadelphia on Thursday next, the 16th.
I look at my list of engagements and find I am in Pittsburg on that day.
I take a telegraph form and pen the following, which I will send to my friend, Major M. P. Handy, the president of this lively association:
Many thanks. Am engaged in Pittsburg on the 16th. Thank God, cannot attend your dinner.
I remember how those “boys” cheeked me two years ago, laughed at me, sat on me. That’s my telegram to you, dear Cloverites, with my love.