Moreover, he paid me the compliment, always so sweet to youth, of treating me as a man of the world.

With condescending confidence he told me many tales of his earlier days; and as he had been everywhere and done everything where and which a man ought not to be and do, his conversation was naturally most interesting.
"I am not holding myself up as an example," he said, after one of his most unusual anecdotes.

"I can only hope that my public services will be allowed to weigh in the balance against my private frailties." He said this with some emotion.
"Even your Excellency," said I, "may be content to claim in that respect the same indulgence as Caesar and Henri Quatre." "Quite so," said the President.

"I suppose they were not exactly--eh ?" "I believe not," I answered, admiring the President's readiness, for he certainly had a very dim notion who either of them was.
Dinner was over and the table cleared before the President seemed inclined for serious conversation.

Then he called for cigars, and pushing them toward me said: "Take one, and fill your glass.