SOME FAMOUS PEOPLE

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 2766, 5 April 1890, Page 5 (Supplement)

SOME FAMOUS PEOPLE

• : BY M. QUAD.' !i

(Detroit Free Press.) ' ' It is really wonderful how ' many famous people'one meets at Atlantic j City, by the It is, of course, ,a famous place, and people go there from all'over the United States, but the way you can run across dukes, lords, generals, governors, admirals, judges and senators is something positively amazing. I had: been there just two hours this last summer when a.distingue looking man came up to hie on the verandah and said : "Beg pardon, but I feel that I should like t'p know you personally. I have read your' Innocents Abroad,"- and had many a hearty laugh over it." •>•••• • "" ButXdid not write the "Innocents Abroad'," "*my" "friend. You have . me with '■ Mark Twain." " Oh—ah! Well, it's - all the same. 1 I've read after you, like your style, and I desire to introduce myself as Lord Oardover, of England. " Glad to meet you, my lord. You don't look well." " No, I am not well. That's why I came to America—for the change. lam in hopes to improve very fast now." " Did the Lordess and little Lordlings come with you ?" , ; .. Well, no. They couldn't get away you see. It's a sort of flying trip you know."

"It must be awfully nice to be a lord and to boss everybody around, and' to have a big castle and forty hired girls, and to trade with a grocer who daren't send in a bill, and to have a coat of arms showingthat you descended from some haughty old ruler of 3000 years ago." ' _ " "It is—-it is," he, feelingly .replied, as he bowed his ■ thanks for the five-cent, cigar I held towards him.

We talked for an hour or two on various matters, and then he said he must go, but would see me again soon. He said it did his soul good to meet with a man of my stamp—a man of lofty ideas and an unsuspicious nature, and he still held my. hand in a loving grasp, when a sudden thought occurred to him. ;

Oli, by the way, I "see that the steamer by which X shall receive £1000 is, reported as arrived in New York, but I r won't get the money for. a day or two. .. Could you spare me 20dols. , There were tears in'my'eyes as I replied that I could not. I had only seven cents after getting down there, and .didn't see how I was to get any more for two weeks. I would-willingly give him live of this, and try to run things on a cent a week, but he refused to take it. He dropped my hand as if it had been a red-hot cold-chisel, and his face showed that his liver was out of order as he turned away and walked off. T saw him frequently for the next two weeks, and though I called him my lord, and took off my hat and bowed low, he cut me cold and dead. ' How I offended him I do not know. . I never had much experienee with lords, and perhaps I rubbed the fur the wrong way or checked him tip too high. Only a day or two after my meeting with the lord an admiral, came round to see me. I had just got a bag of peanuts and a big rocking chair, prepared to enter into the festivities of the occasion, when he interrupted. He was a short, fat man, inclined to , a large lot of freckles, and the checks in his suit were rather loud, but clothes don't make the man, you know. He introduced himself as Admiral White, of the navy, and added that he had wanted to see me for upwards of eighteen years. We sat aud had a long talk. I was surprised at the pcrfect confidence we seemed to have in each other from the very start, and our frankness would have done your heart good. Incidentally, of course, he referred to the fact that he had captured Fort Fisher and Fort McAllister durixg the war, aud that he led the advance on New Orleans. I didn't dispute him, but I told half-a-dozen lies equally as good, and the way, we did enjoy ourselves was immense. Finally the parting came. I knew what it would kring, and I was sad. As he rose up and put his hand on my shoulder in an affectionate way he said : "I have just sent to our paymaster for a thousand or so, but it won't come down until this evening. Meanwhile I want to send my wife off on the Baltimore train. If you can spare me thirty or forty dollars, I'll run over with it about 8 o'clock to-night. Then I had to own up to him that owing to the caving in of my gold mine in Yucatan, and the loss of 3,000,000 dollars by fire in California, and the noil-arrival of my semiannual dividend of 500,000 dollars from any diamond pastere:in Africa, I was hard up and secretly using stove polish on my shoes in place of the regular luxury. " But you don't doubt me ?" he aaked'. " Never ! I would die first." But he wont away grieved aud mad and next day when I met him at the post office and attempted to link my arm in his in a brotherly way he repulsed me and said I ought to be arrested on my looks. The next caller found me down i on the sands, where I was trying

the' effects of a 'suiibath on a boil which wanted to monopolize all my leg. • He,,was a. fine-looking man, tall and straight, and he had on a black suit, aind spoke seven difterent languages. I didn't hear but one, but a boy further back on; the beach said he used the other six in .walking the first fifty feet away from me. ;He . introduced himself as Prof. Langley, of Harvard, and explained that his great speciality was mathematics. We shook. We liked each other from the first look. Some people hold you off, you know, until they : can ascertain whether your , great grandfather was confidential adviser of William'the. Conqueror or only a foremast baud on the Mayflower, but we were not that way. When we had talked' a bit. he said :

: Being,;as I have read all the speeches you have made in the Senate, aud being as my friend; the President, warned me' hot to call on you while here. I have taken this liberty. Have I presumed too much!"

Oh, no! he hadn't. He hadn't presumed over ten per cent. I'd have been too glad to have got up at midnight to receive him, and it he had brought' Harvard College along I'd have shaken hands twice round.

The professor and I talked astronomy, geometry, navigation, addition, division, and lots of other things, but alas ! the moment came when wo,must bid each other adieu. Our emotions were betrayed by our faces. A woman who was looking down on us from the side walk supposed from our demeanour that each of us had lost a step-mother. " Old Boy, farewell! " finally exclaimed the professor as he kicked my boiLand rose up., " Well, old man, it's tuff." " It is, indeed, and I shall never forget this hour." " Nor I, either." "I—l've got a cheque for five hundred," he went on, his voice being much broken, "but I am not to present it until to-morrow. If you could let me have about 20 dollars until about 9 o'clock in the morning, I should esteem it a great favour." I had to tell him that I had just been robbed of a cool 5000d01., and that my treasurer at home had just absconded with 75.000d01., and that the proceeds of the sale of my 200,000 fat Texas steers would not reach mo for three or four days yet, and he went away as the others had done, wondering at man's inhumanity to man. I saw him a few days after on the street car, when I called him Prof, in a friendly way, and asked'him to go fishing with me, he angrily retorted : "Young man, don't try any of your tricks on me ! I'm right on to you for a con.' man V