RECOLLECTIONS OF FULL YEARS
stitution, as usual, and eventually I had to submit the question for arbitration to President Roosevelt, who agreed with me that I was a private citizen and had a perfect right to accept the gift. I afterward hung it in one of the big wall spaces in the state dining-room of the White House and had the pleasure of watching many a guest vainly endeavouring to locate its origin and figure out its meaning.
We concluded our first audience at the court of Japan by signing our names in the Imperial album, after which we went to the American Legation to a beautiful luncheon which the Minister had arranged in our honour. Our Minister in Tokyo then it was some years before the Legation was raised to an Embassy—was Mr. Buck of Georgia, a most affable and agreeable gentleman. He had invited a number of his diplomatic collegues to meet us and, among others, we met for the first time Baron and Baroness Rosen, of the Russian Legation, who were afterward with us in Washington.
I sat on the right of the Minister and next to Baron Sanomiya, the Court Chamberlain, who had conducted our audience. I was greatly interested in Baron Sanomiya's wife. She was an Englishwoman at least twice his size.
At Mr. Taft's request the Minister had invited an old classmate of his, Baron Tajiri Inajiro. At Yale he was known as Tajiri, and the first two letters of both their names being "Ta" he and my husband had been brought together in the classroom, seated alphabetically, and had enjoyed a pleasant association. So Mr. Taft looked forward with great pleasure to renewing the acquaintance in Japan. Baron Tajiri, like most Japanese, was a little man, and his teeth were so formed that he was never able to master the pronunciation of English in such a way as to enable one to understand him easily. But he seems to have acquired at Yale a sound knowledge of business and finance since he became Assistant Minister of Finance under Yamagata and had taken an active part in the change
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