RECOLLECTIONS OF FULL YEARS
grew jubilant over his scores, but for the most part he seemed always to be attending to the business of being President. There was an Executive Office, as I have said, but nearly always one could find four or five men sitting on the verandah waiting to see him. Fortunately he had a large room to himself with a private entrance, but we grew so accustomed to running into strangers that we came almost not to notice them and to enjoy our supposed privacy as if they were not there.
The most interesting callers we had that summer were their Imperial Highnesses, Prince and Princess Kuni of Japan, who were making a tour of the world. They were accompanied by Madame Nagasaki, the wife of the Court Chamberlain who officiated at my husband's first audience with the Emperor, by Colonel Kukurita, a military aide and Mr. Matsui, Chargé d'Affaires of the Japanese Embassy in Washington. They were escorted by representatives of both the State and War Departments. I had never met these Imperial personages, but when Mr. Taft and Miss Alice Roosevelt were in Japan they had been presented to their Highnesses, so Mr. Taft invited Miss Roosevelt, then Mrs. Longworth, and her husband to meet them.
The day following the visit of the Prince and Princess Mr. Taft left for a long trip through the West and I didn't see him again until the late autumn when we all returned to Washington.
The social season in Washington always opens with the Cabinet Dinner in December. This is one of the regular State Dinners which are carefully scheduled and jealously regarded as such. The others were formerly the Diplomatic Dinner and the Supreme Court Dinner, but we inaugurated a Speaker's Dinner, so there are now four. These are state functions pure and simple, but by the exercise of a little art one can manage to make them most enjoyable affairs. To the Cabinet Dinner only the Vice-President and his wife, the
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