CHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY .-- XXII.
BY MARK TWAIN.
[Sidenote: (1890.)] [_Dictated, October 10, 1906._] Susy has named a number of the friends who were assembled at Onteora at the time of our visit, but there were others--among them Laurence Hutton, Charles Dudley Warner, and Carroll Beckwith, and their wives.

It was a bright and jolly company.

Some of those choice spirits are still with us; the others have passed from this life: Mrs.Clemens, Susy, Mr.Warner, Mary Mapes Dodge, Laurence Hutton, Dean Sage--peace to their ashes! Susy is in error in thinking Mrs.Dodge was not there at that time; we were her guests.
We arrived at nightfall, dreary from a tiresome journey; but the dreariness did not last.

Mrs.Dodge had provided a home-made banquet, and the happy company sat down to it, twenty strong, or more.

Then the thing happened which always happens at large dinners, and is always exasperating: everybody talked to his elbow-mates and all talked at once, and gradually raised their voices higher, and higher, and higher, in the desperate effort to be heard.