We were the guests of the nation and were conducted from one function to another with the greatest honour and official formality. Among other arrangements made for our entertainment was a luncheon at the Palace with the Emperor and Empress, and Mr. Taft was permitted, in his capacity of a war secretary, to witness the evolutions of a crack Japanese regiment, of 3,000 troops ready for the field massed on a single great parade ground.

The Japanese Minister of War, General Terauchi, was a soldier⁠—which seems fitting, and which is usual in most countries I believe⁠—and he assumed at once, in common with all the other Army officers whom he encountered, that Mr. Taft was a soldier, too. This has nothing to do with my immediate story, but I remember it as one of the most amusing circumstances of that visit to Japan. Whatever Mr. Taft may be he is not martial, but these Japanese warriors proceeded to credit him with all manner of special knowledge which he had never had an opportunity to acquire and to speak to him in technical terms which, it must be admitted, strained his ability for concealing his ignorance. He finally said that if anybody asked him again about the muzzle velocity of a Krag-Jorgensen, or any like question, he intended to reply: “Sh! It’s a secret!”