Bugg, the next time you see a spider
biting me let him bite on!"
I was told that the Senate Game had been played during the War of Sections
and directly after for large sums. With the arrival of the rebel brigadiers
it was perforce reduced to a reasonable limit.
The "road gang" was not unknown at the White House. Sometimes it assembled
at private houses, but its accustomed place of meeting was first Welcker's
and then Chamberlin's. I do not know whether it continues to have abiding
place or even an existence. In spite of the reputation given me by the
pert paragraphers I have not been on a race course or seen a horse race or
played for other than immaterial stakes for more than thirty years.
IV
As an all-round newspaper writer and reporter many sorts of people, high
and low, little and big, queer and commonplace, fell in my way; statesmen
and politicians, artists and athletes, circus riders and prize fighters;
the riffraff and the elite; the professional and dilettante of the world
polite and the underworld.
I knew Mike Walsh and Tim Campbell. I knew John Morrissey. I have seen
Heenan--one of the handsomest men of his time--and likewise Adah Isaacs
Menken, his inamorata--many said his wife--who went into mourning for him
and thereafter hied away to Paris, where she lived under the protection
of Alexandre Dumas, the elder, who buried her in Pere Lachaise under a
handsome monument bearing two words, "Thou knowest," beneath a carved hand
pointed to heaven.
Pages:
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153