“You know, Mrs. Taft, I have thought about you so often and wondered how you liked it here in Washington after your life in Manila. Why, out there you were really a queen, and you come back here and are just nobody !”

There was another lady who sat next to my husband at a dinner one night. It was a place of honour, next to a Cabinet officer, and she no doubt considered it necessary to “make conversation” while the candle-lights shone. She went along quite successfully for awhile, but eventually blundered into this:

“Do you know, Mr. Secretary, I really think you ought to go out and see the Philippine Islands. They say they are so interesting!”