McAllister, Ward, 1827-1895; Socialites -- New York (State) -- New York -- Biography
In a small place, life is monotonous if you do not in some way break up
this monotony. I bethought me of a friend who lived some distance from
Savannah, who had a deer park, was a sportsman, and was also the soul of
hospitality. His pride lay in his family and his surroundings; so I
wrote to him as follows: “My dear friend, I have no baronial mansion; I
am a wanderer on the face of the earth, while you possess what I most
covet, an ancestral home and a great domain. Will you then invite my
guests and me to pay you a visit and give us a chance at your deer?”
Back came the invitation: “Come to me at once with your noble friends.
I and my whole county will receive them and do them honor.” The next
morning, by ten, we were at the railway station. Before leaving the
carriage I saw a distinguished General, a sort of Dalgetty of a man, who
preferred to fight than eat, pacing up and down the railway platform. A
ruffled shirt, not spotless, a fierce air, an enormous false diamond
pin, as big as a crown piece, in the center of his ruffled shirt bosom,
with a thin gold chain attached to it and to his waistcoat, to prevent
its loss. He at once approached me and exclaimed, “By Jove! by Jove! Mc,
introduce me to your noble friends.” The introduction made, he
accompanied us to the train, and in turn presented us to a large crowd
assembled to see what Southern people were so proud of, “thoroughbreds,”
as he called them. I repeatedly heard him exclaim, “No jackass stock
here, sir; all thoroughbreds! I could tell ’em in the dark.” On rolled
the train, and we soon reached our destination, and were no sooner out
of the cars than we were enveloped by a myriad of sand flies. You could
cut them with a knife, as it were. My friend, a six-footer, stepped up
to my guests and was presented. He then addressed them as follows: “Will
your lordships ride or drive?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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