tle in his relations with the few who enjoyed his
confidence; to the last a most captivating personality.

Though fastidious, Schurz was not intolerant. Yet he was hard to
convince--tenacious of his opinions--courteous but insistent in debate.
He was a German; a German Herr Doktor of Music, of Letters and of Common
Law. During an intimacy of more than thirty years we scarcely ever
wholly agreed about any public matter; differing about even the civil
service and the tariff. But I admired him hugely and loved him heartily.

I had once a rather amusing encounter with him. There was a dinner at
Delmonico's, from whose program of post-prandial oratory I had purposely
caused my own name to be omitted. Indeed, I had had with a lady a wager
I very much wished to win that I would not speak. General Grant and I
went in together, and during the repast he said that the only five human
beings in the world whom he detested were actually here at table.

Of course, Schurz was one of these. He was the last on the list of
speakers and, curiously enough--the occasion being the consideration
of certain ways and means for the development of the South--and many
leading Southerners present--he composed his speech out of an editorial
tour de force he was making in the Evening Post on The Homicidal Side of
Southern Life. Before he had proceeded half through General Grant,
who knew of my wager, said, "You'll lose your bet," and, it being one
o'clock in the morning, I thought so too, and did not care whether I
won or lost it. When he finished, the call on me was spontaneous and
universal. "Now give it to him good," said General Grant.

And I did; I declared--the reporters were long since gone--that there
had not been a man killed amiss in Kentucky since the war; that where
one had been killed two should have been; and, amid roars of laughter
which gave me time to frame some fresh absurdity, I delivered a prose
paean to murder.

Nobody seemed more pleased than Schurz himself, and as we came
away--General Grant having disappeared--he put his arm about me like
a schoolboy and said: "Well, well, I had no idea you were so
bloody-minded."

Chapter the Twenty-Fifth

Every Trade Has Its Tricks--I Play One on William McKinley--Far Away
Party Politics and Political Issues

I

There are tricks in every trade. The tariff being the paramount issue of
the day, I received a tempting money offer from Philadelphia to present
my side