The crowd paid sudden respect to the homespun citizen of an older day, and a great happiness came into his heart--it was like the unfolding of one of the roses. Not that he was to lunch with the President, though Dale's was the village estimate of human greatness. A vaster issue was before him, and this was a token of success--a success which would bind up his remaining years with peace, and give glorious recompense to the companion of his few joys and many griefs. The President hurriedly signed his name to parchments. "I'm making a few postmasters." He smiled toward the sofa. "It's no trouble here--that's all at the other end of the line." Without stopping the pen, he discussed matters with one statesman after another, his lips snapping with metallic positiveness. A member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations protested against the course pursued in Santo Domingo. "If I were making a world, Senator, I'd try to get along without putting in any Santo Domingos, but as things stand, we must make her be decent or let somebody else do it." Another brings up the question of taxing incomes and inheritances. "I favor them both," declared the President. "They are taxes on good luck; bad luck is its own tax." A statesman from the Pacific slope protests against Federal interference in the school question. "It is a local matter as you say, Senator, and yours is a 'Sovereign State'--they all are till they get into trouble. If we should have war with Japan, your State would speedily become an integral part of the Union." A group of gentlemen now object to an aspirant for a Federal judgeship on the ground that he has not a "judicial temperament." "As I understand it," the President begins, "judicial temperament is largely a fragrance rising from the recollection of corporate employment; it is the ability to throw a comma under the wheels of progress and upset public welfare; I am glad to learn that Mr. L---- has _not_ a 'judicial temperament'; I shall send his name to the Senate to-day." The gentlemen retired. "Come, Mr. Dale, let us go." This President had been accused of a lack of dignity. Is it a less valuable trait which puts the John Dales of our land at instant ease in the "State Dining-Room" of the White House? "Well, sir, no man ever had a better friend than Judge Long," said the President when they were seated. "'Ves' Long, I mean," he added with a smile. "I met him in the West; he had a ranch; mine was near it. We saw much of each other; we hunted together--and that's where you learn a man's mettle. He never complained of dogs, luck, or weather. We saw rough times; it was glorious. We'd wake up with snow on the bed, and when 'Ves' introduced me at Point Elizabeth in my first campaign he said we often found rabbit tracks on the quilts--but then 'Ves' had a remarkable eye. "Some say, 'blood is thicker than water.' That depends somewhat on the quality of the water; I like him; there's nothing I wouldn't do for him!"