“Mr. President, I am very glad to have had you with me on this fishing trip, and I hope whenever you want to go off on a similar affair you will let me know it. At the foot of the mountain a band of music and escort of troops are waiting for me, and in the hurry I may not be able to say good-bye to you, so I say it now.” But not one eyelash of the president quivered as he shook hands with me and replied: “Glad to have met you, Mr. Wilder,” so the newspaper boys certainly did have the laugh on me.
But the day was still young. Arrived at the Saratoga depot, all hurried into carriages. Waiting until all were seated and started in procession, I found an open landau and gave the driver the name of my hotel. “All right, Mr. Wilder,” was the reply, which did not startle me, for I am pretty well known in Saratoga by the cabbies—and the police. I said:
“Make a short cut, get out of the crowd and get me to the hotel as soon as possible, so I may avoid the parade.” He endeavored to get out, but he got in; and in trying to extricate himself he succeeded in driving through the band and past the troops and finally beside the carriages of the president and his guests. I took advantage of the occasion; as I passed the president I stood up (though it made little difference whether I sat or stood, for not much of me was visible over the top of the carriage door) and I bowed my prettiest. The president raised his hat, as did the other guests, and I led that procession down Saratoga’s Broadway, the sidewalks of which were crowded with New York and Brooklyn people who knew me and to whom I bowed, right and left, to the end of the route, where one of the newspaper men said:
“Marsh usually gets there.”
In Mr. McKinley’s first term I fell in conversation at a hotel with a gentleman of manner so genial that I never forgot him. We exchanged a lot of stories, at which I got more than I gave, but suddenly the gentleman said:
“I can see, Mr. Wilder, that you don’t recognize me.”
“Well, really, I don’t,” I replied, with an apologetic laugh. “You must pardon me; I meet so many. May I ask your name?”
“Certainly. It is Garret A. Hobart.”
“The Vice-president of the United States! Well, that isn’t anything against you”—for I had to say something, to keep from collapsing. He seemed greatly amused, and I could not help wondering if in any other country of the world a high official of the government could be picked up in a hotel corridor, be chatted with, then be compelled to introduce himself, and throughout all conduct himself as if he were no one in particular.