The poet Longfellow tells us, in one of his short poems, “learn to labor and to wait.”  I have labored through about twenty-five courses at this table, and then I have waited until this hour, in the hope that I might be spared the inevitable ordeal.  But when the last plate had been removed, and your president, who is a stern man of duty, rapped upon the table, I saw there was no escape, and the time had come when he was going to present to you one of the most popular of all dishes at a New England banquet, tongue garnished with brains.  He seems, following the late teachings of Harvard and Yale, to have invited the guests to enter for a sort of skull-race. [Laughter.] Now, I suppose that, in calling first upon those on his right and left, it is a matter of convenience for himself, and he has acted from the same motives that actuated a newly fledged dentist who, when his first patient applied, determined to exercise all that genius and understanding which Boston men generally exercise in the practice of their profession.  The patient, coming from the country, told him he wanted two back teeth, which he pointed out to him, pulled.  The dentist placed him in a chair, and in a few moments he had pulled out his two front teeth.  The patient left the chair, and it occurred to him that the circumstance might be deemed of sufficient importance to call the dentist’s attention to it.  He said, “I told you to pull out these two back teeth.”  “Yes,” said the dentist, “so you did; but I found that the front ones were kind of handier to get at.” [Laughter and applause.] I suppose the reason your president called upon those of us nearest the platform to-night was because he found us a little handier to get at.  But there is no use in speakers coming here and pleading want of preparation, because, doubtless, the New Englanders who expected to take part to-night might have been found at any time within the last six months sitting under blue glass to enlarge their ideas. [Laughter.] I ventured to say to the committee that, this being such a large room, some of your speakers might not have a high enough tone of voice to be heard at the other end.  They looked unutterable things at me, as much as to say that at New England dinners I would find the speakers could not be otherwise than high-toned. [Laughter.]

The first New Englander I ever had the pleasure to listen to was a Pilgrim from Boston, who came out to the town in Pennsylvania, where I lived, to deliver a lecture.  We all went to the lecture.  We were told it was worth twice the price of admission to see that man wipe the corners of his mouth with his handkerchief before he commenced to speak.  Well, he spoke for about two hours on the subject of the indestructibility of the absolute in connection with the mutability of mundane affairs.  The pitch and variety of the nasal tones was wonderful, and he had an amazing command of the longest nouns and adjectives.  It was a beautiful lecture.  The town council