From my very first meeting with him, as he landed at New York from the _Germanic_, I liked him even more than I had expected. He impressed me at once as strong, yet refined and very natural. He was dressed in a plain business garb--rather more like a Scotch merchant than a minister--and appeared a simple, delightful man in every sense the word implies. I liked him then; I love him now. With Mrs. Watson--a frail, little body, with black hair and eyes, and very quiet--we drove at once to the Everett House, where pleasant rooms were waiting. They lunched with me. I ordered a large double sirloin steak and hashed brown potatoes with cream--just what never fails to catch an Englishman. My guests had never before seen the like. “A monumental steak,” said the doctor to his wife. “I’ve heard of your American beefsteaks. The stories have not been overdrawn.” After luncheon Dr. Watson and I called on Mr. John Sloane, who had invited Dr. and Mrs. Watson to spend the Sunday following with him at his home in Lenox. After a delightful chat for a few minutes and the completion of arrangements for the Lenox visit, we returned to my office, where the reporters from the New York, Brooklyn, Boston, and Philadelphia papers were waiting for an interview. The group was gathered about the same round table where the two Arnolds, Stanley, Max O’Rell, and Conan Doyle had been interviewed. It did not take the reporters long to discover that they had an ideal target for their ingenuity, and for two hours the air was full of sharp and brilliant sayings from the lips of my star. It seemed more like the Stanley epoch than any other, and, next to Stanley and Sir Edwin Arnold, best of all. The symptoms were promising. I thought to myself that if he didn’t make a clean sweep, then no man could. I went up to New Haven to hear him give the first of his course of lectures on “The Ethics of Preaching” before the Yale theological students. It was a delightful address. His manner and expression were elegant. He was magnetic, brimful of wit and sparkling with humor, and he couldn’t help it. I knew he would be a great go on the platform. Applications were coming in from all parts of the country for “Ian Maclaren.” The doctor allowed me three evenings between his Yale lectures for trial readings, so we opened up at Springfield. I rented the theatre there and advertised in the newspapers only--used no posters or circulars and had no local society to back it.