I was fearful on account of his health, that the exertion might be too great, and so arose to leave. He again said to me, and taking my hand: "I know all about you and am very grateful to you that in your official capacity as president of the New York Central Railroad you are treating so fairly the Catholics. I know that among your employees twenty-eight thousand are of the Catholic faith, and not one of them has ever known any discrimination because of their belief, but all of them have equal opportunities with the others for the rewards of their profession and protection in their employment." The next day he sent a special messenger for a renewal of the conversation, but unhappily I had left Rome the night before. During my stay in Rome of four days I had visited most of its antiquities, its famous churches, and spent several hours in the Vatican gallery. Our American minister, one of the most accomplished of our diplomats, Mr. William Potter, had also given me a dinner, where I was privileged to meet many celebrities of the time. Among English statesmen I found in Lord Salisbury an impressive figure. In a long conversation I had with him at the Foreign Office he talked with great freedom on the relations between the United States and Great Britain. He was exceedingly anxious that friendly conditions should continue and became most cordial. The frequent disposition on the part of American politicians to issue a challenge or create eruptions disturbed him. I think he was in doubt when President Cleveland made his peremptory demands on the Venezuela boundary question if the president recognized their serious importance, both for the present and the future. He, however, reluctantly yielded to the arbitration, won a complete victory, and was satisfied that such irritating questions were mainly political and for election purposes, and had better be met in a conciliatory spirit. I remember a garden-party at Hatfield House, the historical home of the Cecils, given in honor of King Victor Emmanuel III, who had recently come to the throne. Lord Salisbury was of gigantic proportions physically, while the king was undersized. The contrast between the two was very striking, especially when they were in animated conversation--the giant prime minister talking down to His Majesty, and he with animated gestures talking up to the premier. It is not too great a stretch of imagination, when one knows how traditional interviews and conversations between European rulers affect their relations, present and future, to find in that entertainment and conference that the seed there was sown for the entrance of Italy, at one of the crises of the Great War, on the side of the Allies and against Germany, to whom she was bound by the Triple Alliance.