The speaker had the power of putting those vivid pictures before one.  We were all affected.  That was the moment for the hat.  I would have put two hundred dollars in.  Before he had finished I could have put in four hundred dollars.  I felt I could have filled up a blank check—­with somebody else’s name—­and dropped it in.

Well, now, another speaker got up, and in fifteen minutes damped my spirit; and during the speech of the third speaker all my enthusiasm went away.  When at last the hat came round I dropped in ten cents—­and took out twenty-five.

I came over here to get the honorary degree from Oxford, and I would have encompassed the seven seas for an honor like that—­the greatest honor that has ever fallen to my share.  I am grateful to Oxford for conferring that honor upon me, and I am sure my country appreciates it, because first and foremost it is an honor to my country.

And now I am going home again across the sea.  I am in spirit young but in the flesh old, so that it is unlikely that when I go away I shall ever see England again.  But I shall go with the recollection of the generous and kindly welcome I have had.

I suppose I must say “Good-bye.”  I say it not with my lips only, but from the heart.

THE SAVAGE CLUB DINNER

A portrait of Mr. Clemens, signed by all the members of the club attending the dinner, was presented to him, July 6, 1907, and in submitting the toast “The Health of Mark Twain” Mr. J. Scott Stokes recalled the fact that he had read parts of Doctor Clemens’s works to Harold Frederic during Frederic’s last illness.

Mr. Chairman and fellow-savages,—­I am very glad indeed to have that portrait.  I think it is the best one that I have ever had, and there have been opportunities before to get a good photograph.  I have sat to photographers twenty-two times to-day.  Those sittings added to those that have preceded them since I have been in Europe—­if we average at that rate—­must have numbered one hundred to two hundred sittings.  Out of all those there ought to be some good photographs.  This is the best I have had, and I am glad to have your honored names on it.  I did not know Harold Frederic personally, but I have heard a great deal about him, and nothing that was not pleasant and nothing except such things as lead a man to honor another man and to love him.  I consider that it is a misfortune of mine that I have never had the luck to meet him, and if any book of mine read to him in his last hours made those hours easier for him and more comfortable, I am very glad and proud of that.  I call to mind such a case many years ago of an English authoress, well known in her day, who wrote such beautiful child tales, touching and lovely in every possible way.  In a little biographical sketch of her I found that her last hours were spent partly in reading a book of mine, until she was no longer able to read.  That has always remained in my mind, and I have always cherished it as one of the good things of my life.  I had read what she had written, and had loved her for what she had done.