TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING. 163 



Then he thought a httle while long"er and delivered himself 

 of this : "Well, Smith," he says, "no Democrat ever did 

 understand the water question thoroug^hly." (Laughter.) 

 That was pretty hard, but coming- from the president of 

 Trinity colleg"e I took it and put it in my notebook. 



I had the pleasure last year of addressing this Associa- 

 tion, and I think I can save a great deal of time and some of 

 your nerves if I merely refer to what I said on that occasion 

 in the nature of a greeting to you, so that I need not repeat 

 what I said at that time, that you were welcome to the city 

 of Hartford, because a welcome by repetition is not made 

 any more emphatic. You are ver}- welcome to Hartford, I 

 assure you. The city is glad that you chose it as a place for 

 your meeting. I, as Mayor, grow very conscious that I 

 talk, many times, too often, and many times too much. But 

 the invitations to the Mayor to attend these gatherings come 

 easily, and they are always very pleasant to receive. A great 

 many of them, such as this, are very pleasant to accept, but 

 the Mayor is driven into a position where I am afraid he of- 

 ten talks too much. It reminds me of the old story of Ole 

 and Mary. Once upon a time there were two sweethearts, 

 and Mary thought that Ole had been rather slow about coming 

 to time. Ole and Mary were in love. Once Ole wanted to 

 take Mary for a drive, and so he hired a team and took Mary 

 for a drive, and they drove along in the summer evening, 

 and the big moon was shining over the streets, and overcome 

 by the romance of the situation, Ole turned to Mary and he 

 said: "Mary, will you marry me?" Mars' said: "Yes, 

 Ole, I will." Then Ole drove along in silence. Not a w^ord 

 was said. Thev drove until the silence became rather op- 

 pressive. Mary said : "Ole, why don't you say some- 

 thing?" "Well," says he, "Mary, there has been too much 

 said already." (Laughter.) 



Now I have no particular subject to talk upon tonight. 

 That is not much of a calamity. I was not even asked by 

 the Secretary to talk on education or anything else. T might 

 talk on the Sherman law, but I won't. The Sherman law 



