Lowell could not be seen

From A treasury of American anecdotes; sly, salty, shaggy stories of heroes and hellions, beguilers and buffoons, spellbinders and scapegoats, gagsters and gossips, from the grassroots and sidewalks of America by Benjamin Albert Botkin. 

A visitor to Harvard sought to see the late Lawrence Lowell, then president of the university. Having been called to the nation’s capital on a matter of business, Lowell could not be seen. The visitor was stopped by a secretary in the outer office. “The President is in Washington,” she said, “seeing Mr. Taft.”