At that time the Admiral and myself did not have the facilities of advertising that you have.

I have known Admiral Harrington in all kinds of situations—­in public service, on the platform, and in the chain-gang now and then—­but it was a mistake.  A case of mistaken identity.  I do not think it is at all a necessity to tell you Admiral Harrington’s public history.  You know that it is in the histories.  I am not here to tell you anything about his public life, but to expose his private life.

I am something of a poet.  When the great poet laureate, Tennyson, died, and I found that the place was open, I tried to get it—­but I did not get it.  Anybody can write the first line of a poem, but it is a very difficult task to make the second line rhyme with the first.  When I was down in Australia there were two towns named Johnswood and Par-am.  I made this rhyme: 

               “The people of Johnswood are pious and good;
               The people of Par-am they don’t care a——.”

I do not want to compliment Admiral Harrington, but as long as such men as he devote their lives to the public service the credit of the country will never cease.  I will say that the same high qualities, the same moral and intellectual attainments, the same graciousness of manner, of conduct, of observation, and expression have caused Admiral Harrington to be mistaken for me—­and I have been mistaken for him.

A mutual compliment can go no further, and I now have the honor and privilege of introducing to you Admiral Harrington.

LOTOS CLUB DINNER IN HONOR OF MARK TWAIN

          Addressat the first formal dinner in the new club-house,
          November 11, 1893

          In introducing the guest of the evening, Mr. Lawrence said: 

“To-night the old faces appear once more amid new surroundings.  The place where last we met about the table has vanished, and to-night we have our first Lotos dinner in a home that is all our own.  It is peculiarly fitting that the board should now be spread in honor of one who has been a member of the club for full a score of years, and it is a happy augury for the future that our fellow-member whom we assemble to greet should be the bearer of a most distinguished name in the world of letters; for the Lotos Club is ever at its best when paying homage to genius in literature or in art.  Is there a civilized being who has not heard the name of Mark Twain?  We knew him long years ago, before he came out of the boundless West, brimful of wit and eloquence, with no reverence for anything, and went abroad to educate the untutored European in the subtleties of the American joke.  The world has looked on and applauded while he has broken many images.  He has led us in imagination all over the globe.