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 assigned to me. Mr. Perry then took me to the foreign office for my first official call, and then to the hotel where I was to rest while he showed the draught of my speech to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. On the way to the hotel Mr. Perry remarked something about the official dress in which we were to appear that evening. It being at that time still the rule that the Ministers of the United States should wear a certain uniform at foreign courts—a richly embroidered dress-coat with correspondingly ornamented trousers, a cocked bat, and a court-sword—I had ordered those articles at the establishment of a tailor at Paris who seemed to have the custom of American diplomats, but they were not ready when I left Paris for Madrid. They were to be sent after me in a few days. I could, therefore, appear before the Queen only in an ordinary gentleman's evening attire.

Mr. Perry seemed to be much disturbed by this revelation. He did not know how the “Introductor de los Embajadores,” a high court-official who had to supervise the ceremonial of such state functions, would take it. He feared that there would be difficulty. However, he would lay the state of things before that dignitary and do his best to arrange matters. An hour or two later Mr. Perry returned with the report that the Introductor de los Embajadores, a very solemn and punctilious grandee, had at first grown pale at the idea of a foreign minister being received by her Majesty in plain evening clothes. He doubted whether such a thing had ever happened in the history of the Spanish monarchy, and whether it was compatible with the dignity of the Spanish throne. Mr. Perry then hurried to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who succeeded in persuading the Introductor de los Embajadores that the exigencies of the situation would justify a departure from ever so solemn a rule, but as that official still insisted that he could not