Here is a halfway
point between New York and Florida," and more of the same sort. "My dear
friend," he answered, "every man has the right to make a fool of himself
once in his life. This I have already done. Never again for me. I have
put up my last dollar south of the Potomac." Then I went to the King of
the transcontinental railways. "Mr. Huntington," I said, "you own a
road extending from St. Louis to Newport News, having a terminal in a
cornfield just out of Hampton Roads. Here is a franchise which gives you
a magnificent site at Hampton Roads itself. Why not?" He gazed upon
me with a blank stare--such I fancy as he usually turned upon his
suppliants--and slowly replied: "I would not spend another dollar in
Virginia if the Lord commanded me. In the event that some supernatural
power should take the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway by the nape of the
neck and the seat of the breeches and pitch it out in the middle of the
Atlantic Ocean it would be doing me a favor."

So I returned John his franchise marked "nothing doing." Afterward he
put it in the hands of a very near friend, a great capitalist, who had
no better luck with it. Finally, here and there, literally by piecemeal,
he got together money enough to build and furnish the Hotel Chamberlin,
had a notable opening with half of Congress there to see, and gently
laid himself down and died, leaving little other than friends and debts.

III

Macaulay tells us that the dinner-table is a wondrous peacemaker,
miracle worker, social solvent; and many were the quarrels composed
and the plans perfected under the Chamberlin roof. It became a kind of
Congressional Exchange with a close White House connection. If those old
walls, which by the way are still standing, could speak, what tales
they might tell, what testimonies refute, what new lights throw into the
vacant corners and dark places of history!

Coming away from Chamberlin's with Mr. Blaine for an after-dinner stroll
during the winter of 1883-4, referring to the approaching National
Republican Convention, he said: "I do not want the nomination. In my
opinion there is but one nominee the Republicans can elect this year and
that is General Sherman. I have written him to tell him so and urge
it upon him. In default of him the time of you people has come." He
subsequently showed me this letter and General Sherman's reply. My
recollection is that the General declared that he would not take the
presidency if it were o