Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 April 1885 — A Clover Club Dinner. [ARTICLE]

A Clover Club Dinner.

I think the most enjoyable dinners are those given by the Philadelphia Clover Club. The organization is composed pf the jolliest set of men in the Quaker City, and several hundred of them dine at a monstrous table in the shape of a four- leaved clover. The peculiarity of their dinner is that they endeavor to confuse every man who gets up to make a speech. Nothing tickles the club so much as to get hold of a man who resents such familiarity, and they are often tickled, for nothing is so startling to a diffident speaker as the manners of the members after he has begun to talk. To say they are free and untrammeled in the expression of their opinions concerning the speaker is but a feeble way of putting it. The gibes, sneers, jeers, and comments which assail the unfortunate speaker at every word usually reduce lnm to a state of gibbering imbecility before he has spoken half an hour. Then, if he is any sort of a man at all, he turns round and howls out the best speech of his life, after which he is toasted to the limit of the law. It is certainly uncomfortable at first to face such a club as this famous one of Philadelphia. I remember a very tall, slim, and grave man who rose to make a speech at, one of the Clover Club dinners a year or two ago, and who had evidently been kept in ignorance of the methods of the members of that festive body. He was a railroad president or something of that sort, and his dignity was preternatural. First he coughed slightly behind his hand, then thrust one hand in his breast and rested the other in a stilted way upon the table. He looked with a grave and important air and coughed again. Then his voice came slbwly, distinctly, and with great pomposity. “Gentlemen, I am gratified.” The club raised its voice and seme man yelled “liar.” No one laughed, and the pompuous speaker grew ashy pale. Once more he started off, and when he got to the word gratified the club yelled “liar” at him again. Then he said very quickly, before they had a chance to yell again, “Gentlemen, Pam gratified to be with you this evening,” Before he could go any further the club burst out with the stirring refrain : tVe believe you. we believe you; We believe you just nowr - " " Just now we believe you. We l>elieve you just now. The dignified and pompous speaker stood there, looking bleak and forsaken, while the members of the club leaned back in their chairs and shouted the song so that it made the glasses dance on the table. When they had finished, the club saw their honored guest giggling like a schoolboy. For once his dignity forsook him, and in the next fifteen minutes he made as bright and clever a speech as I had e er listened to. I commend this plan to many of the clubs which give dinners, for nothing can exceed the stupidity of the average after-dinner speech.—Brooklyn Eagle. = ■