FIGHTING THE INSECTS 



as well as by the foreign delegates. I was invited to sit at the 

 head table, but declined, wishing to sit by my friend, Dr. Paul 

 Marchal, in a less conspicuous seat. When the tables were filled, 

 I noticed at the head table a man whose face was very familiar, 

 but whom I could not place. I asked Marchal who he was, but 

 he could not tell me, so I turned to the strange Frenchman 

 on my right and said to him in French, "Can you tell me the 

 name of the man at the head table between Perrier and 

 Blanchard?" 



"Oui," he replied, "c'est evidemment M. Hovard de Wash- 

 ington." 



I was of course in a position to assure him that he was mis- 

 taken. And there the matter rested until a month later, at 

 Cambridge, I met Dr. von GrafI one night at Sir Arthur 

 Shipley's chambers. I recognized von Graff at once as the man 

 I had puzzled about in Paris, and told him the story. His 

 reply was characteristic and pleased me greatly. He said, "Veil, 

 vy not? Ve are de same age, ve are de same size and wir sind 

 beide lustige Manner." 



The next month the celebration of the birth of Charles 

 Darwin was held in Cambridge, England. It was enthusiastically 

 described in many publications at the time. I not only enjoyed 

 it thoroughly, but I was greatly impressed by the genius of the 

 English in arranging functions of that sort. Delegates came from 

 all over the world. Darwin's sons and their families were pres- 

 ent, and there were receptions and garden parties and many 

 notable speeches. I was quartered in Christ College, on a 

 corridor immediately opposite the chambers occupied by Darwin 

 himself when he was an undergraduate. And I ate at the 

 Commons. Thus, surrounded by the English University atmos- 

 phere, the American delegates of my generation were enor- 



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