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eBook Category: Mainstream
eBook Description: All formal dinner toasts are meant to flatter the host or hostess along strict protocol lines. In this wonderful Warren Adler Washington short story, one of a series of behind-the-scenes revelations of life in the nation's capital, the toast giver rejects such a carefully scripted offering and decides to tell the assemblage the "truth", flying in the face of traditional diplomacy.

eBook Publisher: Stonehouse Press, Published: 2001
Fictionwise Release Date: October 2001

24 Reader Ratings: Great Good OK Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [36 KB], eReader (PDB) [20 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [6 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [6 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [38 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [76 KB], hiebook (KML) [24 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [32 KB], iSilo (PDB) [5 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [7 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [34 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [12 KB]
Words: 1729
Reading time: 4-6 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

The ambassador sat in the darkened parlor of the embassy, his eyes staring but unfocused on a painting of one of the former leaders of his country. He had often looked at the picture, but he had never really seen it. He did not see it now.

He tried to quell his agitation by attempting to define his state of mind. Of course, he was exhausted. He and his wife had just attended the 12^th farewell party in his honor. To be sure, he was sad to leave America. He had enjoyed the easy access to the people who held the reins of power. He had even, he admitted to himself, done passably well in articulating whatever it was his country represented at that moment in time.

He had many discussions with the secretary of state, members of Congress and the Senate and other ambassadors and had zealously recorded those conversations in long memos to his foreign secretary. Rarely did he get any response, although he thought his side comments quite wise and full of insights, certainly worthy of mention, if not commendation. Once, at a state dinner in the White House he had even had what he considered to be a substantive conversation with the American president on the state of the world. Modestly, he had offered his own philosophical view on where Western civilization was headed. He had not been optimistic.