52 SUNSHINE AND SPORT IN 



President, relying on an old tradition of the White 

 House to keep him from the highest honour of all. 

 Then, in a trice, Fate took a hand and struck down 

 his Chief, forcing him into a position that he has 

 since filled with such distinction that, in the event 

 of his declining to stand once again, his countrymen 

 will have a very knotty problem in finding a worthy 

 successor. 



I do not as a rule lay claim to that modesty 

 which is one of man's rarest virtues, but it was 

 indeed with hesitation that I sent in my card to the 

 private secretary, Mr Loeb, particularly when, that 

 Monday morning, I found the anteroom thronged 

 with those who had better claims on his time. It 

 seemed ridiculous to intrude on the busiest man in 

 America, merely to shake hands with him. I 

 thought, as I stood waiting in the crowd, of that 

 happy letter of introduction which Mr Lowell once 

 gave to a young man anxious to see Hawthorne. 

 It would, he wrote, do the young man much good, 

 and it could do Hawthorne no harm. And here I 

 was at the White House, probably unlike anyone 

 else in that gathering, for I had no axe to grind, no 

 wheels to oil, no serious purpose indeed of any sort ; 

 merely to shake hands with a man I considered 

 great. My only claim on his remembrance was, in 

 truth, no claim at all. Ten years earlier, when I 

 was editing the Encyclopaedia of Sport, Mr Roose- 

 velt had obliged me by contributing some delight- 

 ful articles on big game shooting in the Rocky 

 Mountains, strenuous sport that always appealed to 

 him. That and no more ; yet he not only received 

 me, but actually kept me with him for more than 

 half an hour, recalling, in a most genial way, an 



