8 P.M. Kissed W., who was talking with Stafford (left as I came). How had he been? "Mighty poorly—poorly enough." Had Longaker been over again? "Yes—yesterday. He is a hit: I like him. He has solid quality—the stuff I love in men." Then immediately broke out, "And now about last night—tell me that—that is the most important of all." And this launched us, my own talk, I suppose, verging on enthusiasm; he interjecting many questions. "Bravo! Bravo!" on hearing that the lecture had cleared $2500—and "Bravissimo! Bravissimo!" when hearing that every penny had gone to the Press Club. "The noble man! And he seems to be doing a good deal of that lately. It is characteristic—deeply so." And all else went smoothly. "What about the Johnstons?"—and so on. "Was the lecture worthy of the subject and of Bob? They are big, both." And, "It was brave for him to go literally from a sick bed. I am intensely drawn to all that." And to all the sweet remembrances in talk of the Colonel's family and from others, W. responded, "Thanks! Thanks! It lifts a heavy weight off me."
W. gave me a curious order for envelopes from Cohen, some to be made particularly for foreign use. Said of Ingersoll reports in Philadelphia papers, "They must have been very bad: I felt as I read them that Bob never could have said such things in such a way." But, "I am sorry there is to be no print of the address. You say none at all?" Ingersoll had requested reporters to refrain, and they had observed his request (the New York papers), though others had not.
W. remarked tonight that if some physical change was not shortly accomplished, he would certainly come to a quick end. Nowadays it was "all downhill."
Intensely interested in all I told him of the Ingersolls—firing at me question after question to enlarge my story.