“In a lodge room one night with Nat Goodwin,” he replied. “It was,
or ought to have been, a solemn occasion, but there was a German
present who couldn’t repeat the obligation backward. Nat stuffed his
handkerchief into his mouth. I bit my lip trying to keep from laughing.
I knew what an awful breach of decorum it would be if we ever gave way
to our feelings. We had almost gained perfect control of ourselves,
and the beautiful and impressive ceremony was half over, when that
confounded Dutchman was asked once more to repeat the oath backward. He
made such work of it that I yelled right out, while Nat had a spasm and
rolled on the floor. Did they put us out? Well, I guess they did. It
took seven or eight apologies to get us back into that lodge.”
Equally funny was his experience in London. It was on the occasion
of the visit of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery, of Boston. A big
dinner was to be given, and the American ambassador and the Prince of
Wales were to be there. I asked Wilder to tell me the story of his
visit.
“I received an invitation,” he began, “through my friend, B. F. Keith,
who was a member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery, and who
happened to be in London. The uniforms were something gorgeous. The
members stood in two long lines, awaiting the coming of the prince, who
is always punctual. I was dressed in my usual boy-size clothes, a small
American flag stuck in my Tuxedo coat. I walked around restlessly.
The major-domo was a very grand personage, with a bearskin hat on one
end and long boots on the other. He must have been eight or ten feet
high. He chased me to the rear of the room several times,—evidently
not knowing who I was,—but every time he turned his back I would bob
out again, sometimes between his legs. The prince came, and almost the
first thing he did was to walk across the floor to me and say: ‘Hullo,
little chap. I am very glad to see you.’ I had met him before. Then
Henry Irving bore down on me and shook my hand, and so did Mr. Depew
and others. By this time the major-domo had shrunk in size.
“Who the Dickens is that little chap, anyway?” he asked.
“‘Sh! He belongs to the American army,’ was the answer. ‘He’s a great
marshal or something over there!’”
Wilder is big-hearted. “The biggest fee I ever received,” he stated
in reply to my inquiry, “was the satisfaction I saw depicted on a
poor man’s face. It was on a railway train. A life-prisoner was being
taken, after a long man-hunt in Europe and America, out to Kansas
City. I never saw so dejected a face. I devoted four or five hours to
brightening him up, and when I left he was smiling all over. I had
succeeded in making him forget his misery for at least four hours!”
A wealthy gentleman of New York pays Mr. Wilder a stated sum every year
to “cheer up” the inmates of hospitals and similar institutions.