Page:My Dear Cornelia (1924).pdf/156

 and leading one by sharp detours into the heart of things as they are. Clearly, I don't dislike Oliver: I envy him, and, like his other familiars, call him "Excellency," a title which I believe few persons except the Governor of Massachusetts have any right to use officially. Nor do I think that Oliver really dislikes me: he pities me, and calls me "Professor," a title which he has also conferred, in my presence, upon the learned Greek who polishes his shoes. I tell him that both the Greek and I have a better right to our titles than he, for Oliver is now writing his reminiscences of the war, and has at present no official Washington connection whatever, busy as he seems to be there.

I envy him the variety of his life, the interest and importance of his personal relations, his position inside the façade of public affairs, his understanding of the huge subterranean dynamos which operate the puppet-show of politics, his familiarity with the little hairsprings which govern the dynamos, his chatter of Wall Street and the Departments and the Legations, and his inexhaustible stock of unpublished anecdote. In public he has had the reputation of a strong team-worker, a sound administrative man; and in the newspapers he passes as a champion of the