my envy. They don’t shoulder the work of the world:  they shoulder the world and leave the work to be done by somebody else.  Three days’ stories and political discussion with them have made me wonder why the devil I’ve been so industrious all my life.  They know more than I know; they are richer than I am; they have been about the world more than I have; they are far more influential than I am; and yet one of them asked me to-day if George Washington was a born American!  I said to him, “Where the devil do you suppose he came from—­Hades?” And he laughed at himself as heartily as the rest of us laughed at him, and didn’t care a hang!

If that’s British, I’ve a mind to become British; and, the point is, you must, too.  Work is a curse.  There was some truth in that old doctrine.  At any rate a little of it must henceforth go a long way with you.

     A sermon?  Yes.  But, since it’s a good one, I know you’ll forgive
     me; for it is preached in love, my dear boy, and accompanied with
     the hearty and insistent hope that you’ll write to me.

     Affectionately,
     WALTER PAGE.

This last letter apparently anticipates the story.  A few weeks before it was written President Wilson had succeeded in carrying out his determination to make Page an important part of his Administration.  One morning Page’s telephone rang and Colonel House’s well-known and well-modulated voice came over the wire.

“Good morning, Your Excellency,” was his greeting.

“What the devil are you talking about?” asked Page.

Then Colonel House explained himself.  The night before, he said, he had dined at the White House.  In a pause of the conversation the President had quietly remarked: 

“I’ve about made up my mind to send Walter Page to England.  What do you think of that?”

Colonel House thought very well of it indeed and the result of his conversation was this telephone call, in which he was authorized to offer Page the Ambassadorship to Great Britain.

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 7:  Mr. David F. Houston, ex-President of the University of Texas, and in 1912 Chancellor of the Washington University of St. Louis.]

[Footnote 8:  Charles R. Van Hise, President of the University of Wisconsin.]

[Footnote 9:  Clarence Poe, editor of The Progressive Farmer.]

[Footnote 10:  The reference is to the meeting of the Southern and the General Education Boards.]

CHAPTER V

ENGLAND BEFORE THE WAR