Jacob A. Riis (1849–1914). Theodore Roosevelt, the Citizen. 1904.
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| down the cub with one of my two No. 12 cartridges, even if I made great haste to pick it up and carry it away before Madam Bruin should appear. It is all right to be bold, but when it comes to maddened she-bears— I made a wild grab for my cub, and had my hand impaled upon a hundred porcupine quills. It was that kind of a cub. It is well enough to laugh, but it took me a little while before I could join in, with all those quills sticking in my fist, just like so many barbed fish-hooks. |
| I remember we shot together once at the range, and that I made nearly as good a score as he. It was in the beginning of our acquaintance, when I had been staying at Sagamore Hill and the question was put by Mrs. Roosevelt at the breakfast-table whether I would rather go driving with her or “go with Theodore on the range.” And I remember the perfidious smile with which he repeated the question, as if he should be so glad to have me go driving when he really wanted to try the new rifle on the range. He cannot dissemble worth a cent, and Mrs. Roosevelt laughed and sent us away, to my great relief; for going driving with her is a privilege one might well |