"We have three professional liars in America--Tom Ochiltree is one and
George Alfred Townsend is the other two."

The stories told of Tom would fill a book. He denied none, however
preposterous--was indeed the author of many of the most amusing--of how,
when the old judge proposed to take him into law partnership he caused
to be painted an office sign: Thomas P. Ochiltree and Father; of his
reply to General Grant, who had made him United States Marshal of Texas,
and later suggested that it would be well for Tom to pay less attention
to the race course: "Why, Mr. President, all that turf publicity relates
to a horse named after me, not to me," it being that the horse of the
day had been so called; and of General Grant's reply: "Nevertheless, it
would be well, Tom, for you to look in upon Texas once in a while"--in
short, of his many sayings and exploits while a member of Congress
from the Galveston district; among the rest, that having brought in a
resolution tendering sympathy to the German Empire on the death of Herr
Laska, the most advanced and distinguished of Radical Socialists, which
became for the moment a _cause celebre_. Tom remarked, "Not that I care
a damn about it, except for the prominence it gives to Bismarck."

He lived when in Washington at Chamberlin's. He and John Chamberlin were
close friends. Once when he was breakfasting with John a mutual friend
came in. He was in doubt what to order. Tom suggested beefsteak and
onions.

"But," objected the newcomer, "I am about to call on some ladies, and
the smell of onions on my breath, you know!"

"Don't let that trouble you," said Tom; "you have the steak and onions
and when you get your bill that will take your breath away!"

Under an unpromising exterior--a stocky build and fiery red head--there
glowed a brave, generous and tender spirit. The man was a _preux
chevalier_. He was a knight-errant. All women--especially all good and
discerning women who knew him and who could intuitively read
beneath that clumsy personality his fine sense of respect--even of
adoration--loved Tom Ochiltree.

The equivocal celebrity he enjoyed was largely fostered by himself, his
stories mostly at his own expense. His education had been but casual.
But he had a great deal of it and a varied assortment. He knew everybody
on both sides of the Atlantic, his friends ranging from the Prince
of Wales, afterward Edward VII, Gladstone and Disraeli, Gambetta and
Thiers, to the bucks