When the adventurous young editor who had proposed being his host for
Cambridge and the Boston neighborhood, while Harte was still in San
Francisco, and had not yet begun his princely progress eastward, read of
the honors that attended his coming from point to point, his courage
fell, as if he had perhaps, committed himself in too great an enterprise.
Who was he, indeed, that he should think of making this
"Dear son of memory, great heir of fame,"
his guest, especially when he heard that in Chicago Harte failed of
attending a banquet of honor because the givers of it had not sent a
carriage to fetch him to it, as the alleged use was in San Francisco?
Whether true or not, and it was probably not true in just that form, it
must have been this rumor which determined his host to drive into Boston
for him with the handsomest hack which the livery of Cambridge afforded,
and not trust to the horse-car and the local expressman to get him and
his baggage out, as he would have done with a less portentous guest.
However it was, he instantly lost all fear when they met at the station,
and Harte pressed forward with his cordial hand-clasp, as if he were not
even a fairy prince, and with that voice and laugh which were surely the
most winning in the world.
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