Travers once said: "We
have three professional liars in America--Tom Ochiltree is one and George
Alfred Townsend is the other two."
The stories told of Tom would fill a book. He denied none, however
preposterous--was indeed the author of many of the most amusing--of how,
when the old judge proposed to take him into law partnership he caused to
be painted an office sign: Thomas P. Ochiltree and Father; of his reply to
General Grant, who had made him United States Marshal of Texas, and later
suggested that it would be well for Tom to pay less attention to the race
course: "Why, Mr. President, all that turf publicity relates to a horse
named after me, not to me," it being that the horse of the day had been so
called; and of General Grant's reply: "Nevertheless, it would be well,
Tom, for you to look in upon Texas once in a while"--in short, of his
many sayings and exploits while a member of Congress from the Galveston
district; among the rest, that having brought in a resolution tendering
sympathy to the German Empire on the death of Herr Laska, the most advanced
and distinguished of Radical Socialists, which became for the moment a
_cause celebre_. Tom remarked, "Not that I care a damn about it,
except for the prominence it gives to Bismarck."
He lived when in Washington at Chamberlin's. He and John Chamberlin were
close friends. Once when he was breakfasting with John a mutual friend came
in. He was in doubt what to order. Tom suggested beefsteak and onions.
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