RECOLLECTIONS OF FULL YEARS
that it was merely a case of transferring his services from the necessarily restricted field of work in the Philippines to the broader and more powerful field of general supervision of Philippine affairs in the War Department, he probably would have declined the appointment and begged to be left where he was, but the change was not to take place for a year and he knew that as soon as he had settled the Friars' question and a few other matters of importance in the Islands he could be of more use to the Filipino people in Washington than he could in Manila. General Wright was to succeed him, with Mr. Ide and Judge Smith, both trained men, in line of succession to follow General Wright, so with the promise of a few months in which to close up the affairs in which he was most deeply engrossed, he accepted the Cabinet office.
Shortly before we left Manila to take up our residence in Washington we decided to give a final and memorable entertainment. We wanted it to be something original, and pondered over it at great length. We thought we had given every kind of party that ingenuity could devise during our residence at Malacañan, but one evening, sitting out on the verandah looking across the still, softly-lapping river at the low-hung lights on the opposite bank, it suddenly occurred to me that we had an ideal setting for a Venetian Carnival, and a Venetian Carnival was settled upon without further ado. It was to be a masked ball, the front gates of the Palace grounds were to be closed and everybody was to come by boat to the river landing on the verandah below.
As soon as this plan was noised abroad the town was agog with excitement. The first question, of course, to occur to everybody was: "What shall I go as?" And pretty soon every woman in town, and many men, assumed that labouredly innocent air peculiar to a period of prepara-
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