Otherwise I should not have been eligible for the New York Pointed Beards, for no qualification is necessary except that one wear a beard cut to a point.
The tables were ornamented with lamps having shades cut to represent pointed beards. A toy goat, the emblem of the club, was the centre decoration. We had the "Head Barber," and, of course, any amount of soft soap. A leading Republican was in the barber's chair, and during dinner some sensation was caused by one of the guests being discovered wearing a false beard. He was immediately seized and ejected until after the dinner, when he returned with his music. It so happened we had present a member of the Italian Opera, with his beautiful pointed beard, and he had also a beautiful voice. But New York could not supply an accompanist with a pointed beard! So a false beard was preferred to false notes. The speeches were pointed, but not cut as short as the beard--rather too pointed and too long. It was just after the Bryan political crisis. The leading politician in the chair and one of the guests, a political leader writer, who had not met--not even at their barber's--since the election, had some electioneering dispute to settle. Americans, unlike us, drag politics into everything. Take away this peculiarity and you take away two-thirds of their excellent after-dinner speaking. The Pointed Beards may have something to do with the matter. The two lost their temper, and the evening was all but ruined thereby, when a happy thought struck me. Although as the guest of the evening I had spoken, I rose again to apologise for being an Englishman! I confessed that I had listened to the two speeches, but their brilliancy and wit were entirely lost upon me; the subtle humour of the American passed an Englishman's understanding. Their personalities and political passages were no doubt ingenious "bluff," but so cleverly serious and so well acted that I had for four-fifths of the acrimonious speeches been entirely taken in. At this all laughed loud at my stupidity, and the evening ended pleasantly.
The secretary of this dinner, which was a most excellent one, was the celebrated Delmonico, but it was not held at his famous restaurant. To have been complete it ought really to have been held in a barber's shop, for some of those establishments in America are palatial, and even minor barbers' shops are utilised in a curious way. One Sunday afternoon as I was taking a walk I overheard some singing in a shop devoted to hair dressing, and looking in I saw an extraordinary sight. There were about a dozen old ladies seated in the barbers' chairs, with their backs to the looking-glasses and brushes, singing hymns. It was a meeting of the Plymouth Brethren, who hired the shop for their devotions!