her superintendence.  Once when my wife could not go with me (she always went with me when she could —­I always did meet that kind of luck), I was going to Washington once, a long time ago, in Mr. Cleveland’s first administration, and she could not go; but, in her anxiety that I should not desecrate the house, she made preparation.  She knew that there was to be a reception of those authors at the White House at seven o’clock in the evening.  She said, “If I should tell you now what I want to ask of you, you would forget it before you get to Washington, and, therefore, I have written it on a card, and you will find it in your dress—­vest pocket when you are dressing at the Arlington—­when you are dressing to see the President.”  I never thought of it again until I was dressing, and I felt in that pocket and took it out, and it said, in a kind of imploring way, “Don’t wear your arctics in the White House.”

You complimented Mr. Rogers on his energy, his foresightedness, complimented him in various ways, and he has deserved those compliments, although I say it myself; and I enjoy them all.  There is one side of Mr. Rogers that has not been mentioned.  If you will leave that to me I will touch upon that.  There was a note in an editorial in one of the Norfolk papers this morning that touched upon that very thing, that hidden side of Mr. Rogers, where it spoke of Helen Keller and her affection for Mr. Rogers, to whom she dedicated her life book.  And she has a right to feel that way, because, without the public knowing anything about it, he rescued, if I may use that term, that marvellous girl, that wonderful Southern girl, that girl who was stone deaf, blind, and dumb from scarlet-fever when she was a baby eighteen months old; and who now is as well and thoroughly educated as any woman on this planet at twenty-nine years of age.  She is the most marvellous person of her sex that has existed on this earth since Joan of Arc.

That is not all Mr. Rogers has done; but you never see that side of his character, because it is never protruding; but he lends a helping hand daily out of that generous heart of his.  You never hear of it.  He is supposed to be a moon which has one side dark and the other bright.  But the other side, though you don’t see it, is not dark; it is bright, and its rays penetrate, and others do see it who are not God.

I would take this opportunity to tell something that I have never been allowed to tell by Mr. Rogers, either by my mouth or in print, and if I don’t look at him I can tell it now.

In 1893, when the publishing company of Charles L. Webster, of which I was financial agent, failed, it left me heavily in debt.  If you will remember what commerce was at that time you will recall that you could not sell anything, and could not buy anything, and I was on my back; my books were not worth anything at all, and I could not give away my copyrights.  Mr. Rogers had long enough vision ahead to say, “Your