powers is as great as if it were a
coat of armor. Mr. Choate, under regulations of our diplomatic
service, could only appear in an ordinary dress suit.

While the diplomats stand in solemn array, the king and queen
go along the line and greet each one with appropriate remarks.
Nobody but an ambassador and minister gets into that brilliant
circle. On one occasion Mr. Choate saw me standing with the other
guests outside the charmed circle and immediately left the diplomats,
came to me, and said: "I am sure you would like to have a talk
with the queen." He went up to Her Majesty, stated the case and
who I was, and the proposition was most graciously received.
I think the royalties were pleased to have a break in the formal
etiquette. Mr. Choate treated the occasion, so far as I was
concerned, as if it had been a reception in New York or Salem,
and a distinguished guest wanted to meet the hosts. The gold-laced
and bejewelled and highly decorated diplomatic circle was paralyzed.

Mr. Choate's delightful personality and original conversational
powers made him a favorite guest everywhere, but he also carried
to the platform the distinction which had won for him the reputation
of being one of the finest orators in the United States.

Choate asked at one time when I was almost nightly making speeches
at some entertainment: "How do you do it?" I told him I was
risking whatever reputation I had on account of very limited
preparation, that I did not let these speeches interfere at all
with my business, but that they were all prepared after I had
arrived home from my office late in the afternoon. Sometimes
they came easy, and I reached the dinner in time; at other times
they were more difficult, and I did not arrive till the speaking
had begun. Then he said: "I enjoy making these after-dinner
addresses more than any other work. It is a perfect delight for
me to speak to such an audience, but I have not the gift of quick
and easy preparation. I accept comparatively few of the constant
invitations I receive, because when I have to make such a speech
I take a corner in the car in the morning going to my office,
exclude all the intruding public with a newspaper and think all
the way down. I continue the same process on my way home in
the evening, and it takes about three days of this absorption and
exclusiveness, with some time in the evenings, to get an address
with which I am satisfied."

The delicious humor of th