A well-known journalist came to my office one day and said: "I am just from Canton, where I have been several days with the president. I discussed with him federal appointments--among others, the mission to England, in which I am interested because my father is an Englishman, and both my father and I are exceedingly anxious to have you take the post, and Mr. McKinley authorized me to ask you if you would accept the mission." The embassy to England presented peculiar attraction to me, because I knew personally the Prince of Wales and most of the leading English statesmen and public men. The journalist said that if I accepted he would sound the press. This he did, and the response was most flattering from journals of all political views. About the time of the inauguration Vice-President Hobart, who was a cordial friend of mine, said to me: "There is something wrong about you with the president. It is very serious, and you can expect no recognition from the administration." I was wholly at a loss to account for the matter and would not investigate any further. Not long afterwards the vice-president came to me and said: "I have found out the truth of that matter of yours and have explained it satisfactorily to the president, who deeply regrets that he was misled by a false report from a friend in whom he had confidence." Soon after the president made me the offer of the mission to Germany. I did not understand the language and felt that I could be of little service there, and so declined. When President McKinley was lying seriously wounded at Buffalo from the shot of the anarchist Czolgosz, I went there to see if anything could be done for his comfort. For some time there was hope he would recover, and that it would be better for him to go to Washington. I made every arrangement to take him to the capital if the doctors decided it could be done. But suddenly, as is always the case with wounds of that kind, a crisis arrived in which he died. Vice-President Roosevelt was camping in the Adirondacks. A message reached him, and the next morning he arrived in Buffalo. The Cabinet of Mr. McKinley decided that the vice-president should be at once inaugurated as president. Colonel Roosevelt was a guest at the house of Mr. Ainsley Wilcox. He invited me to witness his inauguration, which occurred the same evening. It was a small company gathered in the parlor of Mr. Wilcox's house. Elihu Root, secretary of state, choking with emotion and in a voice full of tears, made a speech which was a beautiful tribute to the dead president and a clear statement of the necessity of immediate action to avoid an interregnum in the government. John Raymond Hazel, United States district judge, administered the oath, and the new president delivered a brief and affecting answer to Mr. Root's address.