When I arrived Mr. Bayard was pacing alone, among the assembled guests in the anteroom, and I ventured to suggest to Sir Francis Jeune, who was to take the chair, that it might be wiser, in view of the circumstances, to omit this particular toast. Sir Francis Jeune, however, was firm in the opinion that the situation must be faced. As he observed to me, “I hear that as a speaker you can skate over thin ice, and to-night you have your opportunity.” All the correspondents of the chief American newspapers were present, and all were in eager expectation to see how a difficult and delicate situation would be handled by the ambassador. I confess, for my own part, that I felt a little nervous in regard to the task assigned me, and I remember my dear friend, Sir Frank Lockwood, coming to me just before we sat down to dinner and imploring me to say something that might tend to soothe the irritated feeling which the unfortunate despatch had aroused. I think I must have steered my course successfully, for at the end of my speech Mr. Bayard, rising to respond, was received with genuine enthusiasm by the assembled company. He was evidently deeply moved, for his words came slowly; but he contrived also to move and impress his audience. His opening sentences, earnestly delivered, seemed to still the menace of war and to relieve the feeling of tension that President Cleveland’s actions had created. “To-night,” he said, “we stand upon common ground. Mr. Comyns Carr’s remarks have affected me deeply. There is no sea between us now.” And at the close he added, “There is a headline used by Mr. Gladstone in the article, ‘Our Kith and Kin beyond the Seas,’ which I would gladly recall at this moment. In that article he used this couplet-- When love unites, wide space divides in vain, And hands may clasp across the spreading main. I think it is time to repeat those words. No profession can speak them so well as yours, and none can speak them so well, in the name of your country or my country, as the profession that is domiciled in both countries, and I therefore ask you to join with me in wishing that ‘hands may clasp across the spreading main.’” As Mr. Bayard took his leave on that evening at the conclusion of the dinner he turned to me and said, “I think things will go our way”; and the event happily proved that he was right.