“When I was informed that this club was about to tender me a dinner, although the news was broken to me gently and deliberately, I was seized with a hypnotic intensity of memory which took on the form of neuralgia of the emotions. (Laughter.) But I determined to brace up and come here to-night, whether the ceremonies were of the nature of an ovation or a wake (renewed laughter), for I realized, if ever a man realized, that not to be dined by the Lotus Club would cause in life the feeling of failure and regret. Last night I could think only of what would occur in twenty-four hours after then. I tried to sleep, but that gentle solace did not visit my eyelids. I found myself murmuring over and over again the words: ‘Wake me early, mother dear, for I’m to be queen of the May.’ (Laughter.) “There is sometimes a doubt as to whether there is more satisfaction from a dinner in the realization or in the anticipation. Some think it is better not to give a man a dinner, and then have people going about saying, ‘Why don’t they give him a dinner?’ than to give a dinner and have people say of him, ‘Why did they give _that_ man a dinner?’ (Laughter.) But having tasted the enjoyments thus far this evening, I shall always in the future cast my vote in favor of realization. “So far you have made things easy for me, but my experience has been somewhat like that of a man whom I met in Texas. I got into conversation with him, and he remarked to me: ‘I have struck a big thing.’ I asked him in what manner he had struck this big thing, and he replied: ‘I was sent down here by a religious organization to distribute tracts, and every time I gave a man a tract in Texas he invariably hauled out a gun from one pocket and a bottle of whiskey from another, and, handing me the bottle, he said: “Say, drink some of this, and drink it p---- d---- q----, or my gun will go off!” I have not had to pay for my liquor in this State since I have been distributing tracts.’ (Laughter.) “Your president, in speaking of me to-night, has filled me full with his encomiums. The only fear I have is that I cannot get away with them all; I fear that some of them may leak out in somewhat the same style as Mark Twain experienced at Niagara Falls. During a visit to the Falls, Mark Twain has stated that while walking under the cataract he became scared and called out to the guide, and in so doing took in about three-quarters of the Falls. Speaking of this afterward, he remarked: ‘It was an anxious and perilous moment for me, because I knew if I sprung a leak I should be lost.’