There was no one to receive the company. The chairman was there, but most of the guests arrived before he did. There was no reception committee. The honorary stewards had no badges or other marks to distinguish them from anybody else, and no searcher for a guide or for information knew who they were. There was no table plan, no list of guests. Nobody knew where he was to sit, or who would be his neighbours. We heard that the printer's forms had collapsed into horrible "pi" just at the point of going to press. Although, as an "honorary steward", I arrived a quarter of an hour before the time announced, I could find on the premises none of my companion honoraries, nor was any list of them available. I was talking with two {214} or three arrivals when a familiar voice behind me asked: "Are we alone in Africa?" "It looks like it, Mr. Stanley," said I. "I can't find the huts, or the bones of the feast, or the chief of the tribe. But you have come to the rescue, as usual." Stanley looked amused. "Where's our friend ----? Have you seen him?" he asked. I explained what I had heard about the dear fellow's dilemmas, and the little that I understood of them. "Then we 'll have to work our passage," Stanley said. "Will it be all right if I stand here? I 'll have to meet everybody, I suppose. They won't fear I 'll bite 'em, will they, if there 's no manager to keep me tied up?" And so it was to Stanley's good sense and his willingness to enter into the spirit of the thing that the affair got under weigh. But it was a long time in arriving anywhere. I saw Whistler put his head in at the door. I went after him and introduced him to Stanley. "I say," said Whistler to me, "are you stewarding? I 'm a steward, too. It's all stew, is n't it? But I don't know what to do, do you? Is there anything to eat?" "Not yet," said I. "B-r-r-r-r-h! What's that?" It sounded like a crash of china in an adjoining room. "The end of all things, I should think," said Stanley. "I say, there's the Duke! No Committee? Well, I 'll receive him." "The Duke" was the Duke of Teck, the father {215} of the present Queen. In a minute he was followed by another Duke, Sutherland. And there were Stanley's chief officers, who were to share with him the honours of the evening. And very soon the rooms were filled. But nobody in authority appeared, or if appearing, no authority was exercised. For an hour and a half everybody stood about, accumulating hunger and getting very tired. And there was no one to say what was to be done, or when, or how. At last somebody cried: "Gentlemen, dinner is served. This way, please, and sit where you like!" We all cheered at this.