William Dean Howells 



house in Scotland, and buying his 

 railroad ticket day after day, and then 

 telegraphing his host that he would 

 come the next day. He was delight- 

 ful, in this, at least to the witness, and 

 he was delightful in all his talk about 

 London, from which he had been 

 long endeavoring to tear himself for 

 a more protracted period with the 

 same impossibility he found in a brief 

 absence. He told, with the sunnily 

 smiling eyes of our interviews at 

 the University Press and the White 

 House, of the fascination London had 

 for him, in the mirky purlieus of the 

 poorest, where you could buy for a 

 penny a slice of wonderful pie which 

 included the courses of a whole dinner 

 in its stratification, not less than in 

 the circles of the Prince of Wales set, 

 where the young archworldlings went 

 ingenuously about showing their vac- 

 cinations to one another, and ex- 

 changing boyish congratulations and 

 143 



