I saw him jerk a string, and a camera snapped on another table, taking our picture as we stood.

“Don’t die in the House, Mr. President,” I said.  “Go over into the Senate Chamber.”

“Peace, murderer!” he said.  “Let your bomb do its deadly work.”

“I’m no bum,” I said, with spirit.  “I represent The Rolling Stone, of Austin, Texas, and this I hold in my hand does the same thing, but, it seems, unsuccessfully.”

The President sank back in his chair greatly relieved.

“I thought you were a dynamiter,” he said.  “Let me see; Texas!  Texas!” He walked to a large wall map of the United States, and placing his finger thereon at about the location of Idaho, ran it down in a zigzag, doubtful way until he reached Texas.

“Oh, yes, here it is.  I have so many things on my mind, I sometimes forget what I should know well.

“Let’s see; Texas?  Oh, yes, that’s the State where Ida Wells and a lot of colored people lynched a socialist named Hogg for raising a riot at a camp-meeting.  So you are from Texas.  I know a man from Texas named Dave Culberson.  How is Dave and his family?  Has Dave got any children?”

“He has a boy in Austin,” I said, “working around the Capitol.”

“Who is President of Texas now?”

“I don’t exactly—­”

“Oh, excuse me.  I forgot again.  I thought I heard some talk of its having been made a Republic again.”

“Now, Mr. Cleveland,” I said, “you answer some of my questions.”

A curious film came over the President’s eyes.  He sat stiffly in his chair like an automaton.

“Proceed,” he said.

“What do you think of the political future of this country?”

“I will state that political exigencies demand emergentistical promptitude, and while the United States is indissoluble in conception and invisible in intent, treason and internecine disagreement have ruptured the consanguinity of patriotism, and—­”

“One moment, Mr. President,” I interrupted; “would you mind changing that cylinder?  I could have gotten all that from the American Press Association if I had wanted plate matter.  Do you wear flannels?  What is your favorite poet, brand of catsup, bird, flower, and what are you going to do when you are out of a job?”

“Young man,” said Mr. Cleveland, sternly, “you are going a little too far.  My private affairs do not concern the public.”

I begged his pardon, and he recovered his good humor in a moment.

“You Texans have a great representative in Senator Mills,” he said.  “I think the greatest two speeches I ever heard were his address before the Senate advocating the removal of the tariff on salt and increasing it on chloride of sodium.”

“Tom Ochiltree is also from our State,” I said.

“Oh, no, he isn’t.  You must be mistaken,” replied Mr. Cleveland, “for he says he is.  I really must go down to Texas some time, and see the State.  I want to go up into the Panhandle and see if it is really shaped like it is on the map.”