Mark Twain at a "Punch" Dinner.

Otago Witness, Issue 2818, 18 March 1908, Page 107

Mark Twain at a "Punch" Dinner.

— "It Broke Me All Up."— What happens at the "Wednesday" dinners of "Mr Punch " is usually reserved for those posthumous volumes of recoiiec■tions which so often fail because the eon <tente have been kept too long in bottle. Mr Clemens has just revealed in a speech , tfco the Lotos Club of New York the way en which the famous paper feted him when he was over there last autumn; and we oull the report from the New York Tn Ijune. Mark was giving off a string of the greatest compliments that had ever 'been paid him, and among them was the following : — "It was at a dinner given in the bui'ding of the Punch publication, a humorojs •paper which is appreciated by all Kngh.i.i<rnen. It was the greatest privilege ever .allowed a foreigner. I entered the din nsr ■room, of the building, where those mon together who have been vunnimj»- the pai-cr 'for over 50 years. We were about to H--.gin dinner when the toast-master said : ' Just a minute, there ought to be a little •ceremony.' Then there was that meditd.t>ing silence for a while, and out of a closet there came a beautiful little girl dressed in pink, holding in her hand a copy of •the previous week's paper, which nad 'n it my cartoon. It broke me all up. I t (■could not even say 'Thank you.' That was 'the prettiest incident of the dinner, me . delight of all that wonderful table. Wht-n she was about to go, I said: 'My chilJ, you are not going to leave me ; I have 'hardly got acquainted with you. Sh-3 replied : ' You know, I've got to go ; th°,y •never let me come in here before, and ■they never will again.' That is one of the "beautiful incidents that I cherish.'' Mr Twain spoke 'eelingly of his ho3\ji<table reception everywhere in that country. He said: "Why, the policemen knew me •everywhere, and I considered it a very high > compliment, indeed. Those policemen in London would not only salute me, but would 1 put up their puissant hands end paralyse the commerce of the city ju6t to let me cross the street." It is no flattery to Mr Clemens + o rtmark that he was worth it ; and if 1 c lived J ■over there, London would stop its trainc | every day to let him walk past, and think < it a bargain.