Indeed, I had had with a lady a wager I very much wished to win that I would not speak.

General Grant and I went in together, and during the repast he said that the only five human beings in the world whom he detested were actually here at table.
Of course, Schurz was one of these.

He was the last on the list of speakers and, curiously enough--the occasion being the consideration of certain ways and means for the development of the South--and many leading Southerners present--he composed his speech out of an editorial tour de force he was making in the Evening Post on The Homicidal Side of Southern Life.

Before he had proceeded half through General Grant, who knew of my wager, said, "You'll lose your bet," and, it being one o'clock in the morning, I thought so too, and did not care whether I won or lost it.

When he finished, the call on me was spontaneous and universal.