he French
Ambassador, Jusserand, who was a member of the Tennis Cabinet, was
along, and, just as we were about to get in to swim, somebody said, "Mr.
Ambassador, Mr. Ambassador, you haven't taken off your gloves," to which
he promptly responded, "I think I will leave them on; we might meet
ladies!"

We liked Rock Creek for these walks because we could do so much
scrambling and climbing along the cliffs; there was almost as much
climbing when we walked down the Potomac to Washington from the Virginia
end of the Chain Bridge. I would occasionally take some big-game friend
from abroad, Selous or St. George Littledale or Captain Radclyffe
or Paul Niedicke, on these walks. Once I invited an entire class of
officers who were attending lectures at the War College to come on one
of these walks; I chose a route which gave us the hardest climbing along
the rocks and the deepest crossings of the creek; and my army friends
enjoyed it hugely--being the right sort, to a man.

On March 1, 1909, three days before leaving the Presidency, various
members of the Tennis Cabinet lunched with me at the White House.
"Tennis Cabinet" was an elastic term, and of course many who ought
to have been at the lunch were, for one reason or another, away from
Washington; but, to make up for this, a goodly number of out-of-town
honorary members, so to speak, were present--for instance, Seth Bullock;
Luther Kelly, better known as Yellowstone Kelly in the days when he was
an army scout against the Sioux; and Abernathy, the wolf-hunter. At the
end of the lunch Seth Bullock suddenly reached forward, swept aside a
mass of flowers which made a centerpiece on the table, and revealed
a bronze cougar by Proctor, which was a parting gift to me. The lunch
party and the cougar were then photographed on the lawn.

Some of the younger officers who were my constant companions on these
walks and rides pointed out to me the condition of utter physical
worthlessness into which certain of the elder ones had permitted
themselves to lapse, and the very bad effect this would certainly have
if ever the army were called into service. I then looked into the matter
for myself, and was really shocked at what I found. Many of the older
officers were so unfit physically that their condition would have
excited laughter, had it not been so serious, to think that they
belonged to the military arm of the Government. A cavalry colonel proved
unable to keep his horse at a smart trot f