Boston, at a very early hour, and amuse the boys who were sweeping and
dusting the store until one of the partners arrived. I believe he
never lost a chance to indulge in a verbal quibble. "In the meantime,
and 'twill be a very mean time."

I often regret that I did not preserve his comical letters, and those
of Richard Grant White and other friends who were literary masters.
Mr. Grant White helped me greatly when I was doubtful about some
literary question, saying he would do anything for a woman whose name
was Kate. And a Dartmouth graduate, whom I asked for a brief story of
Father Prout, the Irish poet and author, gave me so much material that
it was the most interesting lecture of my season. He is now a most
distinguished judge in Massachusetts.

Saxe, like other humourists, suffered from melancholia at the last.
Too sad!

After giving a lecture in the chapel of Packer Institute at the time I
was with Mrs. Botta in New York, I was surprised to receive a call the
next morning from Mr. Charles Storrs of 23 Monroe Place, Brooklyn,
asking me to go to his house, and make use of his library, which he
told me Horace Greeley had pronounced the best working and reference
library he had ever known. A great opportunity for anyone! Mr. Storrs
was too busy a man to really enjoy his own library. Mrs. Storrs and
Miss Edna Dean Proctor, who made her home with them, comprised his
family, as his only daughter had married Miss Proctor's brother and
lived in Peoria, Illinois. Mr. Storrs had made his own fortune,
starting out by buying his "time" of his father and borrowing an old
horse and pedlar's cart from a friend. He put into the cart a large
assortment of Yankee notions, or what people then called "short