Page:Forty years of it (IA fortyyearsofit00whitiala).pdf/86

 was disconcerting, and it made me self-conscious and uneasy, till he said:

"Where could one get a cravat like the one you have on?"

It was, I remember—because of the odd incident—an English scarf of blue, quite new. I had tried to knot it as Ben Cable of the Democratic National Committee knotted his, and it seemed that such a little thing should not be wanting to the happiness of a man who, by all the outward standards, had so much to gratify him as Altgeld had, and I said—with some embarrassment, and some doubt as to the taste I was exhibiting—"Why, you may have this one."

In a moment his face changed, the mask fell, and he shook his head and said: "No, it would not look like that on me."

After his election it was suggested to me that I might become his secretary, but I declined; in my travels over the state as a political correspondent I was always meeting aged men, seemingly quite respectable and worthy and entirely well meaning, who were introduced not so much by name as such and such a former governor's private secretary; though like the moor which Browning crossed, they had

names of their own, And a certain use in the world, no doubt.

But I did take a position in the office of the secretary of state that offered the opportunity I had