The messenger who had hitherto conducted me was known among the foreign residents of Bangkok as "Captain Dick"--a talkative person, with a shrewd eye to his own advancement. He spoke good English, and a good deal of it, and suggested, I remember, certain ways in which it would be possible for me to further his interests with the king. He had been at sea, and had perhaps commanded one of the king's sea-going vessels--his "captaincy" being rather maritime than military. He was quite disposed to join the embassy, which was at that time getting ready to be sent to Great Britain. He mentioned, incidentally, that a few of the naval buttons on my uniform would be a highly acceptable gift for me to offer him. The confidence and self-assurance with which he had borne himself, however, began perceptibly to wilt as we drew a little nearer to the august presence of royalty. And, at the armory, he made me over, in quite an humble manner, to the king's oldest son, who was to take me to his father. As I shook hands with the tall, manly, handsome youth who was waiting for me, I thought him worthy of his princely station. Kings' sons are not always the heirs of kingly beauty or of kingly virtues; but here was one who had, at least, the physical endowments which should fit him for the dignity to which he was born. He was almost the only man I saw in Siam whose teeth were not blackened nor his mouth distorted by the chewing of the betel-nut. For the betel-nut is in Siam what the tobacco-cud is in America, only it is not, I believe, quite so injurious to the chewer as the tobacco; while, on the other hand, its use is a little more universal. As between the two, for general offensiveness, I do not know that there is anything to choose. The second king, seeking a significant name for his son, chose one which had been borne, not by an Asiatic, not by an European, but by the greatest of Americans--George Washington. "What's in a name?" It may provoke a smile at first, that such a use should be made of the name of Washington, as if it were the whim of an ignorant and half-savage king. But when it shall appear, as I shall make it appear before I have finished, that the Siamese king understood and appreciated the character of the great man after whom he wished his son to be called, I think that no American will be content with laughing at him. I own that it moved me with something more than merely patriotic pride to hear the name of Washington honored in the remotest corner of the old world. It seemed to me significant of great progress already achieved toward Christian civilization, and prophetic of yet greater things to come.