It was shortly after this occurrence that I was honored with an invitation to dine at the Golden House. It was in the month of July, 1882. Needless to say, I accepted the invitation, not only because it was in the nature of a command, but also because the President gave uncommonly good dinners, and, although a bachelor (in Aureataland, at all events), had as well ordered a household as I have ever known. My gratification was greatly increased when, on my arrival, I found myself the only guest, and realized that the President considered my society in itself enough for an evening’s entertainment. It did cross my mind that this might mean business, and I thought it none the worse for that.
We dined in the famous veranda, the scene of so many brilliant Whittingham functions. The dinner was beyond reproach, the wines perfection. The President was a charming companion. Though not, as I have hinted, a man of much education, he had had a wide experience of life, and had picked up a manner at once quiet and cordial, which set me completely at my ease. Moreover, he paid me the compliment, always so sweet to youth, of treating me as a man of the world. With condescending confidence he told me many tales of his earlier days; and as he had been everywhere and done everything where and which a man ought not to be and do, his conversation was naturally most interesting.
“I am not holding myself up as an example,” he said, after one of his most unusual anecdotes. “I can only hope that my public services will be allowed to weigh in the balance against my private frailties.”
He said this with some emotion.
“Even your Excellency,” said I, “may be content to claim in that respect the same indulgence as Caesar and Henri Quatre.”
“Quite so,” said the President. “I suppose they were not exactly—eh?”
“I believe not,” I answered, admiring the President’s readiness, for he certainly had a very dim notion who either of them was.
Dinner was over and the table cleared before the President seemed inclined for serious conversation. Then he called for cigars, and pushing them toward me said:
“Take one, and fill your glass. Don’t believe people who tell you not to drink and smoke at the same time. Wine is better without smoke, and smoke is better without wine, but the combination is better than either separately.”
I obeyed his commands, and we sat smoking and sipping in silence for some moments. Then the President said, suddenly: