It was
impossible. It would have exhausted the salary in three months. Still,
it was their official duty to entertain their influentials after some
sort of fashion; and they did the best they could with their limited
purse. In return for champagne they furnished lemonade; in return for
game they furnished ham; in return for whale they furnished sardines;
in return for liquors they furnished condensed milk; in return for the
battalion of liveried and powdered flunkeys they furnished the hired
girl; in return for the fairy wilderness of sumptuous decorations they
draped the stove with the American flag; in return for the orchestra
they furnished zither and ballads by the family; in return for the
ball--but they didn't return the ball, except in cases where the United
States lived on the roof and had room.

Is this an exaggeration? It can hardly be called that. I saw nearly the
equivalent of it, a good many years ago. A minister was trying to create
influential friends for a project which might be worth ten millions
a year to the agriculturists of the Republic; and our Government had
furnished him ham and lemonade to persuade the opposition with. The
minister did not succeed. He might not have succeeded if his salary
had been what it ought to have been--$50,000 or $60,00 a year--but his
chances would have been very greatly improved. And in any case, he
and his dinners and his country would not have been joked about by the
hard-hearted and pitied by the compassionate.

Any experienced 'drummer' will testify that, when you want to do
business, there is no economy in ham and lemonade. The drummer takes his
country customer to the theatre, the opera, the circus; dines him, wines
him, entertains him all the day and all the night in luxurious style;
and plays upon his human nature in all seductive ways. For he knows, by
old experience, that this is the best way to get a profitable order out
of him. He has this reward. All Governments except our own play the same
policy, with the same end in view; and they, also, have their reward.
But ours refuses to do business by business ways, and sticks to ham
and lemonade. This is the most expensive diet known to the diplomatic
service of the world.

Ours is the only country of first importance that pays its foreign
representatives trifling salaries. If we were poor, we could not find
great fault with these economies, perhaps--at least one could find a
sort of plausible excuse for them.