“BY GEORGE! You here!” Roosevelt cried when he blew into the museum’s dining room for his luncheon with Chapman and found Father Zahm in the midst of the scientists and staff who were to be his own expedition advisers. Zahm’s unexpected appearance caught Roosevelt off guard, but, with a veteran politician’s skill, he recovered nicely. “You are the very man I wish to see,” he boomed. “I was just about to write you to inform you that I think I shall, at last, be able to take that long-talked-of trip to South America.”
