Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1912-02-18

affairs. not TO the food The food, I sup
pose, at New York banquet, is and must
necessarily be unexceptionable. 1 can't
say positively as to that. I've only been
attending banquets in New York for lit
tie matter of twenty years or so now. and
I've never dipped into any of this ban
Quet food. Nor have 1 ever seen many
other persons do any eating worth men
tioning at New York banquets. Mostly
they arrive at the banquet halls replete
with regular food that they've got at
their homes, food fixed up and put be
fore them under the superintendent and
supervision of their spouses. They don't
attend banquets in New York to eat; l
gotta hand 'em that as the late Lind
lay Murray used to say. They banquetize
over here for the purpose of listening 20
that We have with us tonight stuff.
Now, this IS strange, considering the
supposed avidness OF the New Yorker for
something that Is really scintillant.
don't profess to understand ii. For, of all
the deadly-dull, yawniferous proseiferous
ead-me-to-the-hayful stuff ever eXuded
from human facial orifices since the first
plans for Babylon were drawn, the major
part of the ater-dinner speaking at these
New York banQuets absolutely is the most
sonnoleScent and soporific.
This after ALL is only what to be ex-
pected. and there is no complaint what
ever about il as an existing fact After
dinner speaking is an art implying, in its
perfection. let US say at a random guess,
about the same amount of genius as it
was necessary for Keats TO possess to
write his ode to Nightingale. The
post-prandial fairy must preside over the
birth Of the man who knows how Sue
cessfully TO speak entertainingly on his
feet And she's a modest little fay, that
one. She doesn't do much presiding of
that kind
There have been mighty few really
worth while after-dirner speakers getting
really entertaining quips and Quirks and
outlets out of their midriffs in this neck
OF II In this writer's time, and he perhaps
can lay claim to have heard all of the
most renowned of them
Mark Twain, let us say at the start,
was distinctly not one OF them l re-
ported I suppose. at least one hundred
banuuets at which Mark Twain was the
big card of the night in the after-dinner
chirping line. ] ought to say here in
parentheses that j am an unusually easy
person to get a laugh out of il there
anything TO laugh at. Mr.. Clemens never
extracted anything even remotely symp-
tomato of laugh from my expectant
and entirely receptive frame at any one
Of those one hundred banQuetS. L don
recoIlect ever having known any man to
lie so overestimated In this matter OF aft
er-dinner speaking as was Mark Twain.
His remarks at banQuets always were
reported in full in the New York papers.
and the laugh" thing, in brackets. al
ways was inserted at the finish OF each
of his suppostitiously mirthful observa-
tons And, indeed. the people gathered
around the more or less festive board al
ways did laugh at Mr.. Twain's after
a H. - Ii xk4xr Ia
cause they felt that IL was the thing to
do, the thing they literally had to do. II
they were not to show themselves up as
bovine individuals wholly lacking In a
sense OF humor But all the same l often
noticed that the grins on their counte-
nances when Mark Twain was speaking
were more or less Of the frozen or dental
kind. and they were forcing those laughs
from a section of their anatomy not very
FAR from the larynx. Mark wasn't funny
on his feet Yes, the aforementioned
drawl was there: but n drawl in itself
Isn't funny unless ttere's SonettinS fox