AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A PENNSYLVANIAN
to my office and said: “The subscription price of my book is a dollar and a half, but I got a good deal of information from you, so I will sell you a copy for a dollar.” He was entirely sincere and the joke upon me was too manifest not to be enjoyed. I was not willing, however, that the value of my work should be measured at fifty cents and, therefore, I paid him the full price, much to his relief.
In November, 1867, I heard Charles Dickens read in Musical Fund Hall selections from his novels, including the chapter upon the death of little Paul Dombey and extracts from the Pickwick Papers. He had his hair twisted into a sort of curl; he wore a velvet vest and carried an unnecessarily heavy gold watch chain, and on the whole gave the suggestion of a want of thorough breeding, perhaps even of commonness. He read with something of a cockney accent, but with considerable dramatic effect.
Among the observances of the Centennial Celebration in 1876, a Congress of Authors from over the country assembled in Independence Hall on the Fourth of July, and each author there deposited a sketch written by himself of some one of the worthies of the Revolution. Mark Twain was one of those who participated. It was the only time I ever saw him, and I remember him as a slim man with a light complexion and a large mustache, wearing a white, or nearly white, suit of clothes. I wrote a paper upon Colonel Samuel John Atlee, who commanded the Pennsylvania Musketry Battalion in that war.
On the sixth of October, 1883, the Germans of America celebrated the two hundredth anniversary of the coming of the Germans to Germantown, which was the beginning of that great immigration, and I made the address at the Academy of Music before an immense concourse of people. It was translated into German and republished at Hamburg. One day the German Consul of Philadelphia came to my office, bringing to me in person the official thanks of Prince
