Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 232, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 October 1917 — The Wit of Mr. Choate. [ARTICLE]

The Wit of Mr. Choate.

Joseph H. Coate, the late ex-anfpas-sador to England, had a decidedly nasal voice, but the New Republic says it was a beautiful voice, resonant as some big gong, and his rather unkind wit was as genuine as his,courage. Every now and then his wit was touched with beauty, as when he said, of the freshmen dormitories at Harvard, that all they needed to make them rivals of the Oxford college buildihg was ivy and time. Mr. Choate took a playful satisfaction in suddenly chilling auditors whom he had carefully warmed. Speaking once at a boys’ school, three of whose graduates had acted as his secretaries when he was ambassador, he delighted his audience by his praise of the secretaries. After enjoying the pleasure of masters and boys, Mr. Choate wound up by saying something like this: /‘Perhaps I ought to add that all I ask of a secretary is that he shall keep out of my way and shave every day.”