But those dinners were mainly memorable occasions, and the guests who attended them heard some of the best talk in America at that time, and came away with increased wonder for the variety of knowledge and interest, and for the unceasing charm and courtesy of their host, the President. Contrary to the opinion of persons who heard him only as a political speaker shouting in the open air from the back platform of his train or in a public square, Roosevelt was not only a speaker, he was also a most courteous listener. I watched him at little dinners listen not only patiently, but with an astonishing simulation of interest, to very dull persons who usurped the conversation and imagined that they were winning his admiration. Mr. John Morley, who was a guest at the White House at election time in 1904, said: "The two things in America which seem to me most extraordinary are Niagara Falls and President Roosevelt." Jacob Riis, the most devoted personal follower of Roosevelt, gives this as the finest compliment he ever heard of him. A lady said that she had always been looking for some living embodiment of the high ideals she had as to what a hero ought to be. "I always wanted to make Roosevelt out that," she declared, "but somehow every time he did something that seemed really great it turned out, upon looking at it closely, that it was ONLY JUST THE RIGHT THING TO DO." * * Riis, 268-69. But at home Roosevelt had affection, not compliments, whether these were unintentional and sincere, like that of the lady just quoted, or were thinly disguised flattery. And affection was what he most craved from his family and nearest friends, and what he gave to them without stint. As I have said, he allowed nothing to interrupt the hours set apart for his wife and children while he was at the White House; and at Oyster Bay there was always time for them. A typical story is told of the boys coming in upon him during a conference with some important visitor, and saying reproachfully, "It's long after four o'clock, and you promised to go with us at four." "So I did," said Roosevelt. And he quickly finished his business with the visitor and went. When the children were young, he usually saw them at supper and into bed, and he talked of the famous pillow fights they had with him. House guests at the White House some times unexpectedly caught sight of him crawling in the entry near the children's rooms, with two or three children riding on his back. Roosevelt's days were seldom less than fifteen hours long, and we can guess how he regarded the laboring men of today who clamor for eight and six, and even fewer hours, as the normal period for a day's work. He got up at half-past seven and always finished breakfast by nine, when what many might call the real work of his day began.