Tarry at home travels . a great respect for the letters of intro-duction which I brought him, and the wholeinterview was a fine illustration of etiquette, diplo-macy, and red tape in which, dear reader, I assureyou I could and can do as well as another if thereis occasion. So I told him what Mr. Bancroftwanted and I. He said that if I would writehim a note which he could send to the ForeignSecretary, the Foreign Secretary would send thatnote to the Home Secretary, and the Home Sec-retary would confer with the Keeper of the Records,and that he, Mr. Dallas, had no doubt that theKeeper of the Rec
Tarry at home travels . a great respect for the letters of intro-duction which I brought him, and the wholeinterview was a fine illustration of etiquette, diplo-macy, and red tape in which, dear reader, I assureyou I could and can do as well as another if thereis occasion. So I told him what Mr. Bancroftwanted and I. He said that if I would writehim a note which he could send to the ForeignSecretary, the Foreign Secretary would send thatnote to the Home Secretary, and the Home Sec-retary would confer with the Keeper of the Records,and that he, Mr. Dallas, had no doubt that theKeeper of the Records would give me the per-mission I wanted. Here I, barbarian that I was,thanked him, but said if I might sit a moment athis desk I would write the memorandum; that 406 TAKRY AT HOME TRAVELS I wanted to see the portfcjlio of American papers,very limited, as I need not say, of 1584. hair turned gray as I spoke of sittingat his desk. He said he thought I had bettergive more thought to the letter and had better. DkPAKTMENT of AGRirULTIKK go to my lodgings and write him a note which, asbefore, he could send to, etc., etc., etc. I acceptedthe snub, went to my lodgings, wrote the note,and have never seen Mr. Dallas from that day tothis. WTiat happened was this — that that even- THE NEW WASHINGTON 407 ing I met at a little party Mr. Gardiner, the diligentand celebrated historian of that time, that thenext morning he introduced me to Sir FrancisPalgrave, the Keeper of the Records, that he gaveme a line which opened the whole history ofEngland for a thousand years to me. I made mycopies and sent them to Mr. Bancroft, I supposethe next day, and then went off for ninety dayson the Continent and elsewhere. On my returnhome in the first week of the next January, as Ishook hands with the captain of the Europa inQueenstown Harbor, he said to me that I shouldfind a note from the Foreign Office in my state-room. I wondered what the Foreign Office hadto do with me, and I ran downst
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