) 'I've got a sketch of him here
an' it's all twaddle. Tell us something new about him. If he's got
a hole in his sock we ought to know it.'
Mr Dana came in to see him while I was there.
'Look here, Dana,' said the Printer, in a rasping humour. 'By the
gods of war! here's two columns about that performance at the
Academy and only two sticks of the speech of Seward at St Paul.
I'll have to get someone if go an' burn that theatre an' send
the bill to me.
In the morning Mayor Wood introduced me to the Duke of
Newcastle, who in turn presented me to the Prince of Wales - then
a slim, blue-eyed youngster of nineteen, as gentle mannered as any I
have ever met. It was my unpleasant duty to keep as near as
possible to the royal party in all the festivities of that week.
The ball, in the Prince's honour, at the Academy of Music, was
one of the great social events of the century. No fair of vanity in
the western hemisphere ever quite equalled it. The fashions of the
French Court had taken the city, as had the Prince, by
unconditional surrender.
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