His finest enjoyment was to meet with some person, especially a stranger, with whom he could discuss the celebrated works in the galleries of Europe. He soon became known as a man who had something to say, and who knew how to say it. He told the Italian picture-dealers to cheat him as much as they could, and he gave amusing accounts of their various attempts to do this. He knew more than they did. After this time he lived as much in Europe as he did in America. Before 1860 he had crossed the Atlantic nearly forty times. The marriage of his sister to Henry W. Longfellow was of great advantage to him, for through Longfellow he made the acquaintance of many celebrated persons whom he would not otherwise have known, and being always equal to such occasions he retained their respect and good will. One might also say, "What could Longfellow have done without _him_?" His conversation was never forced, and the wit, for which he became as much distinguished in social life as Lowell or Holmes, was never premeditated, often making its appearance on unexpected occasions to refresh his hearers with its sparkle and originality. In the "Autocrat of the Breakfast Table" Doctor Holmes quotes this saying by the "wittiest of men," that "good Americans, when they die, go to Paris." Now this wittiest of men was Tom Appleton, as many of us knew at that time. He said of Leonardo da Vinci's "Last Supper" that it probably had faded out from being stared at by sightseers, and that the same thing might have happened to the Sistine Madonna if it had not been put under glass,--these being the two most popular paintings in Europe. His fund of anecdotes was inexhaustible. Earlier in life he was occasionally given to practical jokes. A woman who kept a thread and needle store in Boston was supposed to have committed murder, and was tried for it but acquitted. One day, as Appleton was going by her place of business with a friend he said: "Come in here with me; I want to see how that woman looks." Then surveying the premises, as if he wished to find something to purchase, he asked her if she had any "galluses" for sale,--gallus being a shop-boy's term at the time for suspenders. When the Art Museum in Boston was first built its odd appearance attracted very general attention, and some one asked Tom Appleton what he thought of it. "Well," he said, "I have heard that architecture is a kind of frozen music, and if so I should call the Art Museum frozen 'Yankee Doodle.'"