"You have a coat?" asked the President.
"No, thank you," Bok answered. "I don't need one."
"Not in other places, perhaps," he said, "but here you do. The dampness comes up from the Potomac at nightfall, and it's just as well to be careful. It's Mrs. Harrison's dictum," he added smiling. "Halford, send up for one of my light coats, will you, please?"
Bok remarked, as he put on the President's coat, that this was probably about as near as he should ever get to the presidency.
"Well, it's a question whether you want to get nearer to it," answered the President. He looked very white and tired in the moonlight.
"Still," Bok said with a smile, "some folks seem to like it well enough to wish to get it a second time."
"True," he answered, "but that's what pride will do for a man. Try one of these cigars."
A cigar! Bok had been taking his tobacco in smaller doses with paper around them. He had never smoked a cigar. Still, one cannot very well refuse a presidential cigar!
"Thank you," Bok said as he took one from the President's case. He looked at the cigar and remembered all he had read of Benjamin Harrison's black cigars. This one was black—inky black—and big.
"Allow me," he heard the President suddenly say, as he handed him a blazing match. There was no escape. The aroma was delicious, but—Two or three whiffs of that cigar, and Bok decided the best thing to do was to let it go out. He did.