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[285] === “E. V. Lucas and Twain at a ‘Punch Dinner’” (1910) E. V. Lucas Edward Verrall Lucas (1868–1938), a popular English writer, met Twain at a special dinner hosted by Punch on his behalf on 9 July 1907. He was also greeted on this occasion by Joy Agnew, the young daughter of the composer Philip L. Agnew, who presented him with a copy of a cartoon that had appeared in Punch for 26 June 1907. i met mark twain only once. It was on his last visit to London, when he was present at the special Punch dinner given in his honor. Under any conditions , there could not have been a more appreciative or interesting guest; but, as it happened, a pretty little incident at the very outset of the evening touched a chord of tenderness that enabled those of us who were present to realize a completer Mark Twain than perhaps many of his fellow convivialists on such occasions were in the habit of doing. Immediately upon entering the dining-room, before we had time to sit down, three knocks sounded on an inner door, and there emerged little Miss Agnew bearing in her hands Bernard Partridge’s cartoon of a week or so before, representing a welcome to Mark Twain, and this she offered to him in a few simple words. Whether it was the cumulative effect of the kindness of everyone with whom he had come in contact since landing, or whether he was overcome by the fresh candor of this child and the dramatic unexpectedness of the gift, I do not know, but Mark Twain was visibly touched, almost melted—and I was conscious throughout the evening that the scene was very near his thoughts. He referred to it more than once in his informal speech, which swung between recollections of London in the ’seventies, the wildest chaff of his old friend Sir Henry Lucy,1 and passages that were almost too emotional. In meeting him at last face to face, I was surprised by his size. I had always thought of him as long and gaunt; but he was quite a small man, and his lines were soft. I was surprised also by the almost tremulous gentleness of his expression; but that I imagine was a late acquisition: it had come with age and bereavement. His voice a little disappointed me. One had heard so twain in his own time [286] much of the famous drawl; but, possibly through careful cultivation of a similar mechanism by humorists of our own, I was not carried away by it. But everything that he said was good, and his choice of words seemed to me extremely felicitous. Not long afterwards I had occasion to write to him about something, and recalled the evening to his mind. In reply, he asked me to go and stay with him at Stormfield, but as his letter began “My dear Lucy” I did not go. Note 1. Sir Henry W. Lucy (1843–1924), English journalist. E. V. Lucas, “E. V. Lucas and Twain at a ‘Punch Dinner,’” London Bookman 38 (June 1910): 16–19. ...

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