Another War department employee whom we valued highly was Arthur Brooks, a coloured department messenger, and a major of militia. Arthur was the most useful individual I ever knew anything about, combining absolute loyalty with an efficiency and accuracy that were most comforting to his employers. He went into the War Department during President Arthur’s administration and gradually won for himself a position of especial trust. Mr. Root, as Secretary of War, found Arthur most valuable and reposed the utmost confidence in him.

For me he did all kinds of things which without him would probably have been done very badly. He “managed” all my larger entertainments, being present, after I had done all I could by way of preparation, to see that everybody was properly received, that the service ran smoothly and that nothing went amiss. When Mr. Taft became President he had Arthur transferred to the position of custodian of the White House and I shall have occasion to speak of him in that capacity later on.

Taking things all in all, I think we managed to get on very well indeed, though I did sometimes sigh for the luxurious simplicity and the entire freedom from petty household details that I had left behind me in Manila. I did not find that my very large and very black cook was so capable as to make me forget the excellencies and the almost soundless orderliness of Ah Sing; nor did my coloured butler and one housemaid quite manage to take the places of Ah King and Chang, my two upstairs “Chinaboys” at Malacañan. As for the six or eight barefoot muchachos who “skated” my Philippine hardwood floors to a state of mirror gloss and kept everything speckless without ever seeming to do any work at all, they could have no substitute in a Washington establishment.