have been a Rough Rider if I could have gone to war on an automobile but not on a horse! No, I know the horse too well; I have known the horse in war and in peace, and there is no place where a horse is comfortable. The horse has too many caprices, and he is too much given to initiative. He invents too many new ideas. No, I don't want anything to do with a horse. And then we have taken Chauncey Depew out of a useful and active life and made him a Senator—embalmed him, corked him up. And I am not grieving. That man has said many a true thing about me in his time, and I always said something would happen to him. Look at that [pointing to Mr. Depew] gilded mummy! He has made my life a sorrow to me at many a banquet on both sides of the ocean, and now he has got it. Perish the hand that pulls that cork! All these things have happened, all these things have come to pass, while I have been away, and it just shows how little a Mugwump can be missed in a cold, unfeeling world, even when he is the last one that is left—a GRAND OLD PARTY all by himself. And there is another thing that has happened, perhaps the most imposing event of them all: the institution called the Daughters of the—Crown—the Daughters of the Royal Crown—has established itself and gone into business. Now, there's an American idea for you; there's an idea born of God knows what kind of specialized insanity, but not softening of the brain—you cannot soften a thing that doesn't exist—the Daughters of the Royal Crown! Nobody eligible but American descendants of Charles II. Dear me, how the fancy product of that old harem still holds out! Well, I am truly glad to foregather with you again, and partake of the bread and salt of this hospitable house once more. Seven years ago, when I was your guest here, when I was old and despondent, you gave me the grip and the word that lift a man up and make him glad to be alive; and now I come back from my exile young again, fresh and alive, and ready to begin life once more, and your welcome puts the finishing touch upon my restored youth and makes it real to me, and not a gracious dream that must vanish with the morning. I thank you. AN UNDELIVERED SPEECH