In the event that some supernatural power should take the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway by the nape of the neck and the seat of the breeches and pitch it out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean it would be doing me a favor." So I returned John his franchise marked "nothing doing." Afterward he put it in the hands of a very near friend, a great capitalist, who had no better luck with it.

Finally, here and there, literally by piecemeal, he got together money enough to build and furnish the Hotel Chamberlin, had a notable opening with half of Congress there to see, and gently laid himself down and died, leaving little other than friends and debts.
III Macaulay tells us that the dinner-table is a wondrous peacemaker, miracle worker, social solvent; and many were the quarrels composed and the plans perfected under the Chamberlin roof.

It became a kind of Congressional Exchange with a close White House connection.

If those old walls, which by the way are still standing, could speak, what tales they might tell, what testimonies refute, what new lights throw into the vacant corners and dark places of history! Coming away from Chamberlin's with Mr.Blaine for an after-dinner stroll during the winter of 1883-4, referring to the approaching National Republican Convention, he said: "I do not want the nomination.

In my opinion there is but one nominee the Republicans can elect this year and that is General Sherman.