Jacob A. Riis (1849–1914). Theodore Roosevelt, the Citizen. 1904.
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| can contribute to our knowledge of the world about us, he made notes of the habits and habitats of the game he hunted. His hunting-books have been extensively quoted by the scientific periodicals. Which brings to my mind another Presidential sportsman who occasionally makes notes of his exploits with the rod. He will forgive me for telling of it, for never did man draw a clearer picture of himself than did Mr. Cleveland when over the dinner-table in a friend’s house he told the story of the egg the neighbor’s hen laid in his yard. We had been discussing the way of conscience—whether it was born in men, or whether it grew, and he supported his belief that it was born with the child by telling of how when he was a little chap the hen made the mistake aforesaid. |
| “I could n’t have been over five or six at most,” said Mr. Cleveland, “but I remember the awful row I made until they brought back that egg to the side of the fence where it belonged.” |
| That was Grover Cleveland, sure enough. My own conscience suffered twinges he knew not of during the recital, for I also had an egg to my account, but on the other side of the |