sident. When my term is ended, I
think, on the whole, that I should like best to be Mayor of Buffalo
again."

I answered that I could well understand that desire, as he might not
find quite so much left to veto there as in other places. This in
allusion to the byname of "the vetoing Mayor of Buffalo" the people had
given him on account of his systematic opposition to all extravagant
expenditure when Governor of the State. It was said he had saved the
taxpayer a million dollars during the first year of his administration.

Then the conversation turned on the responsibilities of statesmen, and I
hazarded the remark that they must weigh heavily on them, especially in
cases where perhaps the fate of nations depended on their decision. What
were Mr. Gladstone's feelings, and how did he sleep, I wondered, after
he had signed the paper authorising the bombardment of Alexandria?

"Well," said the President, "I think he would have slept well. When a
man has fully and carefully considered all facts and arguments that can
help him to a conclusion, and when he has decided to do what he
considers right, according to the best of his judgment, there is no
reason why he should not sleep as soundly as ever he did before."

Such were the characteristic words meditatively and slowly spoken by the
man who was going to be inaugurated, a few days later, in Washington, as
President of the United States, and who henceforth was to take many a
momentous decision, that would affect the weal and woe of millions of
his compatriots--decisions, too, so weighty and far-reaching that on
them might depend the fate of nations, the peace of the world.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER VIII

GIUSEPPE MAZZINI[10]

I well remember some great and good men whom it has been my privilege
and my good fortune to know, but none do I see so plainly before me as
Giuseppe Mazzini. His features, his expression, and his every gesture,
all are indelibly engraven on my memory. Is it because thirty-four years
ago I painted a portrait of him that hangs here just opposite me, and I
reverently look up at it as I am about to speak of him? Or is it not
rather that to have known Mazzini means ever to remember him--to hear
his voice, to feel his influence, and to recall his outward form?

The portrait was painted in the little studio of my bachelor days, which
measured about twenty feet by ten, and had no other appendage but a
good-sized cupboard, by courtesy called a be