THE COLONEL KILLS THREE ELEPHANTS 1 63 
thick-skinned rhino is sometimes used by cartoon¬ 
ists as a symbol for “the trusts,” and the story 
seemed doubly appropriate as applied to this par¬ 
ticular ex-president. 
Some member of our party then modestly ad¬ 
vanced the suggestion that the colonel might some 
day be back in the White House again. He 
laughed and said that the kaleidoscope never re¬ 
peats. 
“They needn’t worry about what to do with this 
ex-president,” he said. “I have work laid out for 
a long time ahead.” 
Another member of our party then told about the 
Roosevelt act in The Follies of 1909, in one part 
of which some one asks Kermit (in the play) where 
the “ex-president” is. “You mean the ‘next presi¬ 
dent,’ don’t you?” says Kermit. When Colonel 
Roosevelt heard this he was immensely interested, 
not so much in the words of the play, but in the fact 
that Kermit had been represented on the stage— 
dramatized, as it were. 
And as we left for our own camp the colonel 
called out: “Now, don’t forget. Just as soon as 
we all get back to America we’ll have a lion dinner 
together at my house.” 
