n by
unexpected calls to Washington. Another was taken by my partners
who arranged a little good-bye dinner. Another was taken by the
British Ambassador--and so on. Absurd--of course it was absurd, and
I feel now as if it approached the criminal. But every stolen day I
said, "Well, I'll find another." But another never came.

But good news of you came by many hands and mouths. My
congratulations, my cheers, my love, old man. Now when you do take
up work again, don't take up all the work. Show the fine virtue
called self-restraint. We work too much and too hard and do too
many things even when we are well. There are three titled
Englishmen who sit at the table with me on this ship--one a former
Lord Mayor of London, another a peer, and the third an M.P. Damn
their self-sufficiencies! They do excite my envy. _They_ don't
shoulder the work of the world: they shoulder the world and leave
the work to be done by somebody else. Three days' stories and
political discussion with them have made me wonder why the devil
I've been so industrious all my life. They know more than I know;
they are richer than I am; they have been about the world more than
I have; they are far more influential than I am; and yet one of
them asked me to-day if George Washington was a born American! I
said to him, "Where the devil do you suppose he came from--Hades?"
And he laughed at himself as heartily as the rest of us laughed at
him, and didn't care a hang!

If that's British, I've a mind to become British; and, the point
is, you must, too. Work is a curse. There was some truth in that
old doctrine. At any rate a little of it must henceforth go a long
way with you.

A sermon? Yes. But, since it's a good one, I know you'll forgive
me; for it is preached in love, my dear boy, and accompanied with
the hearty and insistent hope that you'll write to me.

Affectionately,
WALTER PAGE.

This last letter apparently anticipates the story. A few weeks before it
was written President Wilson had succeeded in carrying out his
determination to make Page an important part of his Administration. One
morning Page's telephone rang and Colonel House's well-known and
well-modulated voice came over the wire.

"Good morning, Your Excellency," was his greeting.

"What the devil are you talking about?" asked P