Dr. Warner in Chicago.
Reading edition
Local literary circles were thrown into a condition of feverish excitement yesterday by the rumor that Mr. Charles Dudley Warner, a well-known Eastern littérateur, had arrived in the city, and was the honored guest of Col. Wirt Dexter, the popular South-Side Boniface. When the rumor first gained circulation, it was discredited by very many, including that cautious and exacting body known as the Chicago Literary Club. Mr. T. Arthur Whiffen, the talented son of the wealthy wholesale fig-dealer, and a member of the club in high standing, refused to believe that Mr. Warner was really in the city.
“As soon as I heard it,” said he, “I stepped around to Dale’s drug-store, and asked the proprietor if he had received any confirmation of the rumor, and he replied in the negative. Mr. Dale is the general Western agent for Mr. Warner’s works; and, as he very pertinently observed, he would have been likely to know if Warner were in this vicinity.”
Later in the day, however, it was learned that Mr. Warner was indeed in the midst of us: in fact, along about three o’clock in the afternoon he was seen bowling down Drexel Boulevard in Mr. Dexter’s elegant St. Bernard dog-cart behind Mr. Dexter’s famous bay gelding, Grover Cleveland. It 289was stated that Mr. Warner had come to Chicago for the purpose of delivering an address before the Clan-na-Gael on St. Patrick’s Day, the 17th inst., and had chosen as the theme for that address, “The Theory that Ben Jonson Did Not Write Rasselas.” Subsequently, however, it was ascertained that this statement was unfounded. In a conversation with Professor Benjamin F. Lawkins, president of the Emerson Literary Society, and author of the scholarly brochure entitled “The Relations Between Fifteen-Ball Poole and the Librarian of Our Public Library,” it was developed that Mr. Warner had produced the following works: “A Liver Safe Cure,” “Some Golden Remedies,” “Comets and Their Relations to Purgative Pellets,” and “What I Know About Farming.” We are told that Mr. Warner will leave for the Pacific slope in a day or two, but will be in Chicago again during the month of June; and we doubt not, that, upon his return, he will be cordially welcomed and handsomely entertained by our appreciative public.