“I have five thousand dollars for you right here in my pocket-book.”

“Here’s Delmonico’s, come in and tell me all about it.”

After seating themselves, the stranger said he was part owner in a gold mine in California, and explained that there had been a dispute about its ownership and that the conference of partners broke up in quarreling.  The stranger said he had left, threatening he would take the bull by the horns and begin legal proceedings.  “The next morning I went to the meeting and told them I had turned over Josh Billings’s almanac that morning and the lesson for the day was:  ’When you take the bull by the horns, take him by the tail; you can get a better hold and let go when you’re a mind to.’  We laughed and laughed and felt that was good sense.  We took your advice, settled, and parted good friends.  Some one moved that five thousand dollars be given Josh, and as I was coming East they appointed me treasurer and I promised to hand it over.  There it is.”

The evening ended by Mr. Arnold saying: 

“Well, Mr. Shaw, if ever you come to lecture in England, I shall be glad to welcome and introduce you to your first audience.  Any foolish man called a lord could do you more good than I by introducing you, but I should so much like to do it.”

Imagine Matthew Arnold, the apostle of sweetness and light, introducing Josh Billings, the foremost of jesters, to a select London audience.

In after years he never failed to ask after “our leonine friend, Mr. Shaw.”

Meeting Josh at the Windsor one morning after the notable dinner I sat down with him in the rotunda and he pulled out a small memorandum book, saying as he did so: 

“Where’s Arnold?  I wonder what he would say to this.  The ‘Century’ gives me $100 a week, I agreeing to send them any trifle that occurs to me.  I try to give it something.  Here’s this from Uncle Zekiel, my weekly budget:  ’Of course the critic is a greater man than the author.  Any fellow who can point out the mistakes another fellow has made is a darned sight smarter fellow than the fellow who made them.’”

I told Mr. Arnold a Chicago story, or rather a story about Chicago.  A society lady of Boston visiting her schoolmate friend in Chicago, who was about to be married, was overwhelmed with attention.  Asked by a noted citizen one evening what had charmed her most in Chicago, she graciously replied: 

“What surprises me most isn’t the bustle of business, or your remarkable development materially, or your grand residences; it is the degree of culture and refinement I find here.”  The response promptly came: 

“Oh, we are just dizzy on cult out here, you bet.”

Mr. Arnold was not prepared to enjoy Chicago, which had impressed him as the headquarters of Philistinism.  He was, however, surprised and gratified at meeting with so much “culture and refinement.”  Before he started he was curious to know what he should find most interesting.  I laughingly said that he would probably first be taken to see the most wonderful sight there, which was said to be the slaughter houses, with new machines so perfected that the hog driven in at one end came out hams at the other before its squeal was out of one’s ears.  Then after a pause he asked reflectively: