"I accepted the invitation to answer you because I wanted and needed the
money. Of course I had no time to prepare a special address. My idea was to
make my fee by ripping you up the back. But when I read the verbatim report
which had been prepared for me there was not a word with which I could take
issue, and that completely threw me out."

Then I told him how it had happened and we had a hearty laugh. He was the
most lovable of men. That such a man should have fallen a victim to the
blow of an assassin defies explanation, as did the murders of Lincoln and
Garfield, like McKinley, amiable, kindly men giving never cause of personal
offense.



II


The murderer is past finding out. In one way and another I fancy that I am
well acquainted with the assassins of history. Of those who slew Caesar I
learned in my schooldays, and between Ravaillac, who did the business for
Henry of Navarre, and Booth and Guiteau, my familiar knowledge seems almost
at first hand. One night at Chamberlin's, in Washington, George Corkhill,
the district attorney who was prosecuting the murderer of Garfield, said
to me: "You will never fully understand this case until you have sat by me
through one day's proceedings in court." Next day I did this.

Never have I passed five hours in a theater so filled with thrills. I
occupied a seat betwixt Corkhill and Scoville, Guiteau's brother-in-law
and voluntary attorney. I say "voluntary" because from the first Guiteau