The army officers who were stationed at one place or another about the fair grounds or who came to Chicago as visitors always managed to drift in with us artists. They were a jolly crowd, and there was one or more in at every one of our frivolities. There was one colonel—I cannot think of him by name, but as the man who always began a story or an address with, “As I was about to remark when rudely interrupted by the gentleman on my left....” We had a joke which we tried on each newcomer—namely, that of seizing our chairs, straddling them, and running madly around the table striving to ride him down. We tried it on the colonel only once. He immediately grabbed his chair, did not join us, but jumped with it upon the table, riding down the middle and smashing everything as he went. One officer, an impulsive, big creature, had been colonel of an Indian regiment, and another was the commander of the Buffaloes. I asked them to compare the character of the two races as soldiers. I was told that the negro was perfect, if led by a white man, but an officer could never make an intimate friend of one. On the contrary, the Indian was not perfect until he was in a fight, and then the white man must know enough to let him alone. An officer always made intimate friends among them, and he could eat and sleep with them as he would with his brother. The Indian is an inbred man and can be the friend of any other inbred man (aristocrat). One night I went with Captain Maney to the Electrical Building; he had charge of the comfort of the ten thousand troops quartered there. As we entered, three noncommissioned officers came up, saluting, to ask for instructions. One was an Irishman—an alien; one was a negro—a freed slave; and the third was an Indian—an aborigine. The colonel himself had been an officer of the South in the Civil War and was a pardoned rebel. This could never have happened in any other army in the history of the world, unless perhaps in ancient Rome. They might have had the freed slave, the alien, and Cataline (the rebel), but I don’t think they could have produced an aborigine soldier. We artists of the Exposition were given a very smart banquet by the Chamber of Commerce of Chicago. This brought to mind a story which I told to Mr. Armour, much to his delight. A young girl calls on a woman friend and talks to her little boy, who is taking care of his baby sister in the carriage. She says to him: [Illustration: “JUSTICE” Center Panel by Edward Simmons, Criminal Courts Building, New York _Copyright by Edward Simmons; from a Copley Print_ _Copyright by Curtis & Cameron, Publishers, Boston_ ] “Won’t you give the baby to me and you can come and see her at my house?” “No,” he answered, “she’d starve to death. Your dress buttons behind.”