h an interview is exceedingly
instructive. Lord Affanaff lands at the dock in North River, is
driven to a hotel in a closed carriage, is interviewed a few minutes
after by a representative of the _Herald_ as to his view of the
great Republic based upon what he has seen. Such an interview is
also instructive. Interviews with candidates as to their chances
of election is another favorite way of finding out their honest
opinion, but people who rely on those interviews generally lose
their bets. The most interesting interviews are generally denied.
I have been expecting to see an interview with the Rev. Dr. Leonard
on the medicinal properties of champagne and toast, or the relation
between old ale and modern theology, and as to whether prohibition
prohibits the Prohibitionists.

_Question_. Have you ever been misrepresented in interviews?

_Answer_. Several times. As a general rule, the clergy have
selected these misrepresentations when answering me. I never blamed
them, because it is much easier to answer something I did not say.
Most reporters try to give my real words, but it is difficult to
remember. They try to give the substance, and in that way change
or destroy the sense. You remember the Frenchman who translated
Shakespeare's great line in Macbeth--"Out, brief candle!"--into
"Short candle, go out!." Another man, trying to give the last
words of Webster--"I still live"--said "I aint dead yit." So that
when they try to do their best they often make mistakes. Now and
then interviews appear not one word of which I ever said, and
sometimes when I really had an interview, another one has appeared.
But generally the reporters treat me well, and most of them succeed
in telling about what I said. Personally I have no cause for
complaint.

_Question_. What do you think of the administration of President
Cleveland?

_Answer_. I know but very little about it. I suppose that he is
doing the best he can. He appears to be carrying out in good faith
the principles laid down in the platform on which he was elected.
He is having a hard road to travel. To satisfy an old Democrat
and a new mugwump is a difficult job. Cleveland appears to be the
owner of himself--appears to be a man of great firmness and force
of character. The best thing that I have heard about him is that
he went fishing on Sunday. We have had so much mock morality, dude
deportment and hypocritical respectability in public office, that
a