RECOLLECTIONS OF FULL YEARS
ularly, and to our great amusement, upon the humorous side of the situation in which he had found himself.
It will be remembered that among Kings and Emperors and Czars, and even lesser potentates, the rank of Presidents was a difficult thing to determine. Should minor royalties take precedence over the representatives of the French Republic and the United States of America, to say nothing of Mexico, Brazil, Switzerland, and all the other great and small democracies?
Mr. Roosevelt had great difficulty in finding his place. Then, too, he was constantly running into kings and other royalties to whom he, naturally, owed ceremonious respect. They were so numerous in London at the time that familiarity with them bred carelessness in one whose tongue had not been trained to the honorifics of Court life, and he found himself making extremely funny blunders. He told us many stories of his adventures with the world's elect and, with his keen appreciation of the ridiculous and his gift of description, gave us as merry an afternoon as we ever spent with him.
I dwell on the memory of this agreeable meeting with Mr. Roosevelt and the entertainment it afforded me, because by his manner he succeeded in convincing me that he still held my husband in the highest esteem and reposed in him the utmost confidence, and that the rumours of his antagonism were wholly unfounded. I was not destined to enjoy this faith and assurance for very long.
In mid-July of that year we started off for a short cruise on the Mayflower, the only one we ever made. It is not really possible for the President to have a vacation, but if he happens to be a good sailor I know of no better way for him to get short intervals of rest than by boarding the Presidential yacht and steaming away, out of the reach of crowds.
We had only a small party with us, my husband's brother, Mr. Horace Taft, my sister, Mrs. Louis More, Miss Mabel
384
