d as little what kings and potentates thought of him as a
newsboy watching a baseball game cares for the accidental company
of a bank president.

The world has been good to Colonel House, according to his
standards. He has realized his ambition to the fullest. Life has
given him all he wanted, the privilege of seeing, more abundantly
than to any other in his generation, perhaps in all time; for he is
history's greatest spectator.

He is glad. His heart is full. He wishes to give in return. He is
the kindest-hearted man who has ever had empires at his disposal.
He wants to give, give, give. He wants to make happy. He was the
fairy godmother of Europe, the diplomatic Carnegie, who thought it
a disgrace to die diplomatically rich.

For many months I saw him almost daily at Paris. His was a heart of
gold, whether in personal or international relations; but a heart
of gold does not make a great negotiator. Perverse and nationalistic
races of men, incredulous of the millenium, keep their hearts of gold
at home when they go out to deal with their neighbors.

It was difficult for Colonel House to say no. He might go so far as
to utter the first letter of that indispensable monosyllable; but
before he accomplished the vowel, his mind would turn to some happy
"formula" passing midway between no and yes. He was fertile in
these expedients. Daily he would talk of some new "formula," for
Fiume, for Dantzig, for the Saar Valley, for the occupation of the
Rhine, for Shantung, always happily, always hopefully. The amiable
William Allen White hit off his disposition perfectly when he said
House's daily prayer was, "Give us this day our daily compromise."

When he split a hair between the south and southwest side, it was
not for logistic pleasure; it was to divide it with splendid
justice and send each of two rival claimants away happy in the
possession of exactly half of the slender filament, so that neither
would be empty handed. I never saw a man so overjoyed as he was one
day late in April or early in May when M. Clemenceau had left his
rooms in the Hotel Crillon with the promise of Franco-American
defensive alliance.

"The old man," he said, "is very happy. He has got what he has been
after. I can't tell you just now what it is. But he has got it at
last."

He had been the donor, for Mr. Wilson, of the exact southwest side
of a hair, the promise to submit, without recommendations, an
alliance to the United States Senate, w