Page:In defense of Harriet Shelley, and other essays.djvu/158

 MARK TWAIN

and receive your dist net on on the night of the 3oth, which is the twenty -fifth anniversary of the founding of the club, and it will not surprise me if they have some great times there.&quot;

What put the honorary membership in my head that day in the Century Club? for I had never thought of it before. I don t know what brought the thought to me at that particular time instead of earlier, but I am well satisfied that it originated with the Board of Directors, and had been on its way to my brain through the air ever since the moment that saw their vote recorded.

Another incident. I was in Hartford two or three days as a guest of the Rev. Joseph H. Twichell. I have held the rank of Honorary Uncle to his children for a quarter of a century, and I went out with him in the trollery-car to visit one of my nieces, who is at Miss Porter s famous school in Farmington. The distance is eight or nine miles. On the way, talking, I illustrated something with an anecdote. This is the anecdte :

Two years and a half ago I and the family arrived at Milan on our way to Rome, and stopped at the Continental. After dinner I went below and took a seat in the stone-paved court, where the customary lemon trees stand in the customary tubs, and said to myself, &quot;Now this is comfort, comfort and repose, and nobody to disturb it; I do not know anybody in Milan.&quot;

Then a young gentleman stepped up and shook hands, which damaged my theory. He said, in substance :

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