AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A PENNSYLVANIAN
gallery and when I arose to speak to a toast I made a reference to her presence.
A third physical peculiarity is the fact that I have five incisor teeth in the lower jaw. One day I said to my colleague on the Bench, Judge Mayer Sulzberger:
“Judge, did you know that I was a monstrosity?”
“No. What peculiar phase of monstrosity do you exhibit?”
“I have five incisor teeth in the lower jaw.”
“There is nothing strange about that; look at mine.”
And he had five incisor teeth on the lower jaw. Monstrosities were a majority of the court.
For many years I corresponded with Dr. J. G. DeHoop Scheffer, of Amsterdam, the historian of the Reformation in the Netherlands and one of the most learned scholars of Europe. When in Amsterdam in 1890 I called on him and found him a very genial old gentleman, with white hair, living in a house which indicated the presence of every necessary comfort. I presume at his suggestion I was elected a member of the Maatschappij Van Nederlandsche Letterkunde of Leyden. When our correspondence began I said to him that my acquaintance with Dutch was limited, but that if he would write in either French or German I could get along comfortably. He gave no attention to this suggestion, but wrote to me in English.
The Comte de Paris, the Bourbon claimant of the throne of France and an aide-de-camp upon the staff of General George B. McClellan, when he was engaged in the preparation of his history of the War of the Rebellion, wrote to me a letter or two concerning the manufacture of the Griffen Gun at Phœnixville. That is as near as I have ever come to association with royalty, except that I once dined at the Hotel Bellevue with the present King of the Belgians. He had come over here to view the country, no doubt, as a means of enlarging his scope and preparing him for his prospective duties. I chatted with him for a
