After my experience at the synagogue in Warsaw, to which I have already referred, I asked Paderewski if he would not accompany me to service some Friday. I said that he was charged with being Anti-Semitic. “How ridiculous!” he answered. “M. Paderewski,” I explained. “I know you are not Anti-Semitic, and you know that you are not--but how are the people to be convinced of it?” Paderewski at once saw the point. He was anxious to refute the charge against him, yet his caution prompted him to consult his political associates, who advised against his adoption of my suggestion. “Never mind,” he reassured me: “I’ll find another way.” That way he found when Hoover came to Warsaw. I was then about to visit Pinsk, and he requested me to postpone it for a day or two. “I am giving a state dinner for Mr. Hoover at my official residence,” said he, “I want you to come to that and let the doubters see how you will be one of the Premier’s most honoured guests.” That dinner was a gorgeous affair. Everybody of political, financial, and social importance was there; the representatives of the old aristocracy, the makers of the new republic. The table was a sort of squared horseshoe, its head the outside centre of the crosspiece, its foot the inside centre. Paderewski had personally arranged the seating: on his right sat Gibson, at his left Jadwin; Mme. Paderewska was at the table’s head; Hoover sat at her left; General Pilsudski, as Chief-of-State, sat at her right; and at his right was the place that the Premier had given me. Few knew at that time of any change in General Pilsudski’s attitude toward the Commission. All the guests supposed him still firm in his opposition to us. From my seat beside him, I saw many inquisitive eyes fixed on us, and showing their surprise at my sitting next to him. We were conversing intimately and almost incessantly. It was evident that everybody was wondering what passed between us. And what did? The terrible Chief-of-State was telling me, quite simply, the story of his adventurous life: how he had fought always for Polish liberty, how he had suffered imprisonment at Magdeburg. “But, even when there seemed no hope for either my country or me,” he declared, “I never lost my faith. A marvellous gypsy palmist had assured me that I was destined to be dictator of Poland.” I looked at him in amazement. It seemed incredible that this hardened soldier should be speaking seriously. “The palmist,” he continued, with the simplicity of a child, “found that the lines at the base of my right forefinger formed a star. That is a sure sign that the lucky bearer is to rise to mastery.” He held out his hand to me. I could almost hear the rustle of excitement among the watching guests to whom, of course, his words were inaudible. The star was there. Then, inquisitively, I looked at my own right hand, and to my great surprise I also found a star!