"Yes, Mr. President, I'm mighty glad to see you!" said the boy.
"I am glad to see you, Curtis," returned Mr. Roosevelt.
Then there came a white rose from the presidential desk for the mother,
but after that father and mother might as well have faded away. Nobody
existed save the President and the boy. The anteroom was full; in the
Cabinet-room a delegation waited to be addressed. But affairs of state
were at a complete standstill as, with boyish zeal, the President became
oblivious to all but the boy before him.
"Now, Curtis, I've got some pictures here of bears that a friend of mine
has just shot. Look at that whopper, fifteen hundred pounds--that's as
much as a horse weighs, you know. Now, my friend shot him"--and it was a
toss-up who was the more keenly interested, the real boy or the man-boy,
as picture after picture came out and bear adventure crowded upon the
heels of bear adventure.
"Gee, he's a corker, all right!" came from the boy at one point, and
then, from the President: "That's right, he is a corker. Now you see his
head here"--and then both were off again.
The private secretary came in at this point and whispered in the
President's ear.
"I know, I know. I'll see him later. Say that I am very busy now." And
the face beamed with smiles.
"Now, Mr. President--" began the father.
"No, sir; no, sir; not at all. Affairs can wait. This is a long-standing
engagement between Curtis and me, and that must come first.
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