They were handsomer than I was—or Tom Reed. Oh, you have been doing many things in this time that I have been absent; you have done lots of things, some that are well worth remembering, too. Now, we have fought a righteous war since I have gone, and that is rare in history—a righteous war is so rare that it is almost unknown in history; but by the grace of that war we set Cuba free, and we joined her to those three or four nations that exist on this earth; and we started out to set those poor Filipinos free, too, and why, why, why that most righteous purpose of ours has apparently miscarried I suppose I never shall know. But we have made a most creditable record in China in these days—our sound and level-headed administration has made a most creditable record over there, and there are some of the Powers that cannot say that by any means. The Yellow Terror is threatening this world to-day. It is looming vast and ominous on that distant horizon. I do not know what is going to be the result of that Yellow Terror, but our government has had no hand in evoking it, and let's be happy in that and proud of it. We have nursed free silver, we watched by its cradle; we have done the best we could to raise that child, but those pestiferous Republicans have—well, they keep giving it the measles every chance they get, and we never shall raise that child. Well, that's no matter—there's plenty of other things to do, and we must think of something else. Well, we have tried a President four years, criticised him and found fault with him the whole time, and turned around a day or two ago with votes enough to spare to elect another. O consistency! consistency! thy name—I don't know what thy name is—Thompson will do—any name will do—but you see there is the fact, there is the consistency. Then we have tried for governor an illustrious Rough Rider, and we liked him so much in that great office that now we have made him Vice-President—not in order that that office shall give him distinction, but that he may confer distinction upon that office. And it's needed, too—it's needed. And now, for a while anyway, we shall not be stammering and embarrassed when a stranger asks us, “What is the name of the Vice-President?” This one is known; this one is pretty well known, pretty widely known, and in some quarters favorably. I am not accustomed to dealing in these fulsome compliments, and I am probably overdoing it a little; but—well, my old affectionate admiration for Governor Roosevelt has probably betrayed me into the complimentary excess; but I know him, and you know him; and if you give him rope enough—I mean if—oh yes, he will justify that compliment; leave it just as it is. And now we have put in his place Mr. Odell, another Rough Rider, I suppose; all the fat things go to that profession now. Why, I could have been a Rough Rider myself if I had known that this political Klondike was going to open up, and I would