An Adventure with a Genius: Recollections of Joseph Pulitzer (2024)

Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading

Team.

AN ADVENTURE WITH A GENIUS
Recollections of JOSEPH PULITZER.

BY ALLEYNE IRELAND

AUTHOR OF"DEMOCRACY AND THE HUMAN EQUATION"

PREFACE

In the course of my wanderings about the labyrinth of life it has beenmy good fortune to find awaiting me around every corner some newadventure. If these have generally lacked that vividness of action whichto the eye of youth is the very test of adventure, they have been richin a kind of experience which to a mature and reflective mind has avalue not to be measured in terms of dramatic incident.

My adventures, in a word, have been chiefly those of personal contactwith the sort of men whose lives are the material around which historybuilds its story, and from which fiction derives all that lends to itthe air of reality.

I have had friends and acquaintances in a score of countries, and inevery station of society—kings and beggars, viceroys and ward-politicians, judges and criminals, men of brain and men of brawn.

My first outstanding adventure was with a stern and formidable man, thecaptain of a sailing vessel, of whose ship's company I was one in avoyage across the Pacific; one of my most recent was with a man not lessstern or formidable, with the man who is the central figure in thepresent narrative.

The tale has been told before in a volume entitled "Joseph Pulitzer:Reminiscences of a Secretary." The volume has been out of print for sometime, but the continued demand for it has called for its re-issue. Thechange in title has been made in response to many suggestions that thecharacter of the material is more aptly described as "An Adventure witha Genius."

ALLEYNE IRELAND.
New York, 1920.

I. In a Casting Net
II. Meeting Joseph Pulitzer
III. Life at Cap Martin
IV. Yachting in the Mediterranean
V. Getting to Know Mr. Pulitzer
VI. Weisbaden and an Atlantic Voyage
VII. Bar Harbor and the Last Cruise

CHAPTER I

IN A CASTING NET

A long illness, a longer convalescence, a positive injunction from mydoctor to leave friends and business associates and to seek some spotwhere a comfortable bed and good food could be had in convenientproximity to varied but mild forms of amusem*nt—and I found myself inthe autumn of the year 1910 free and alone in the delightful city ofHamburg.

All my plans had gone down wind, and as I sat at my table in the Cafe
Ziechen, whence, against the background of the glittering blue of the
Alster, I could see the busy life of the Alter Jungfernstieg and the
Alsterdamm, my thoughts turned naturally to the future.

It is not the easiest thing in the world to reconstruct at forty yearsof age the whole scheme of your life; but my illness, and otherhappenings of a highly disagreeable character, had compelled me toabandon a career to which I had devoted twenty years of arduous labor;and the question which pressed for an immediate answer was: What are yougoing to do now?

Various alternatives presented themselves. There had been a suggestionthat I should take the editorship of a newspaper in Calcutta; animportant financial house in London had offered me the direction of itsinterests in Western Canada; a post in the service of the Government ofIndia had been mentioned as a possibility by certain persons inauthority.

My own inclination, the child of a weary spirit and of the lassitude ofill health, swayed me in the direction of a quiet retreat in Barbados,that peaceful island of an eternal summer cooled by the northeasttrades, where the rush and turmoil of modern life are unknown and wherea very modest income more than suffices for all the needs of a simpleexistence.

I shall never know to what issue my reflections upon these matters wouldhave led me, for a circ*mstance, in the last degree trivial, intervenedto turn my thoughts into an entirely new channel, and to guide me,though I could not know it at the time, into the service of JosephPulitzer.

My waiter was extremely busy serving a large party of artillery officersat an adjoining table. I glanced through The Times and the HamburgerNachrichten, looked out for a while upon the crowded street, and then,resigning myself to the delay in getting my lunch, picked up The Timesagain and did what I had never done before in my life—read theadvertisem*nts under the head "Professional Situations."

All except one were of the usual type, the kind in which a prospectiveemployer flatters a prospective employee by classing as "professional"the services of a typewriter or of a companion to an elderly gentlemanwho resides within easy distance of an important provincial town.

One advertisem*nt, however, stood out from the rest on account of thepeculiar requirements set forth in its terse appeal. It ran somethingafter this fashion: "Wanted, an intelligent man of about middle age,widely read, widely traveled, a good sailor, as companion-secretary to agentleman. Must be prepared to live abroad. Good salary. Apply, etc."

My curiosity was aroused; and at first sight I appeared to meet therequirements in a reasonable measure. I had certainly traveled widely,and I was an excellent sailor—excellent to the point of offensiveness.Upon an unfavorable construction I could claim to be middle-aged atforty; and I was prepared to live abroad in the unlikely event of anyone fixing upon a country which could be properly called "abroad" fromthe standpoint of a man who had not spent twelve consecutive months inany place since he was fifteen years old.

As for intelligence, I reflected that for ninety-nine people out of ahundred intelligence in others means no more than the discovery of aperson who is in intellectual acquiescence with themselves, and that ifthe necessity arose I could probably affect an acquiescence which wouldserve all the purposes of a fundamental identity of convictions.

Two things, however, suggested possible difficulties, the questions ofwhat interpretations the advertiser placed upon the terms "widely read"and "good salary." I could not claim to be widely read in anyconventional sense, for I was not a university graduate, and the veryextensive reading I had done in my special line of study—the controland development of tropical dependencies—though it might entitle me tosome consideration as a student in that field had left me woefullyignorant of general literature. Would the ability to discuss withintelligence the Bengal Regulation of 1818, or the British GuianaImmigration Ordinance of 1891 be welcomed as a set-off to a completeunfamiliarity with Milton's "Comus" and Gladstone's essay on theepithets of motion in Homer?

On the subject of what constituted a "good salary" experience had taughtme to expect a very wide divergence of view, not only along the naturalline of cleavage between the person paying and the person receiving thesalary, but also between one employer and another and between oneemployee and another; and I recalled a story, told me in my infancy, inwhich a certain British laboring man had been heard to remark that hewould not be the Czar of Russia, no, not for thirty shillings a week.But that element in the situation might, I reflected, very well be leftto take care of itself.

I finished my lunch, and then replied to the advertisem*nt, giving myEnglish address. My letter, a composition bred of the conflictinginfluences of pride, modesty, prudence, and curiosity, brought forth indue course a brief reply in which I was bidden to an interview in thatpart of London where fashion and business prosperity seek to ape eachother.

Upon presenting myself at the appointed hour I was confronted by agentleman whose severity of manner I learned later to recognize as theuseful mask to a singularly genial and kindly nature.

Our interview was long and, to me at any rate, rather embarrassing,since it resolved itself into a searching cross-examination by a past-master in the art. Who were my parents? When and where had I been born?Where had I been educated? What were my means of livelihood? Whatpositions had I filled since I went out into the world? What countrieshad I visited? What books had I read? What books had I written? To whatmagazines and reviews had I contributed? Who were my friends? Was I fondof music, of painting, of the drama? Had I a sense of humor? Had I agood temper or a good control of a bad one? What languages could I speakor read? Did I enjoy good health? Was I of a nervous disposition? Had Itact and discretion? Was I a good horseman, a good sailor, a goodtalker, a good reader?

When it came to asking me whether I was a good horseman AND a goodsailor, I realized that anyone who expected to find these two qualitiescombined in one man was quite capable of demanding that his companion-secretary should be able to knit woollen socks, write devotional verse,and compute the phases of the moon.

I remember chuckling to myself over this quaint conceit; I was to learnlater that it came unpleasantly near the truth.

Under this close examination I felt that I had made rather a poorshowing. This was due in some measure, no doubt, to the fact that myquestioner abruptly left any topic as soon as he discovered that I knewsomething about it, and began to angle around, with disturbing success,to find the things I did not know about.

At one point, however, I scored a hit. After I had been put through mypaces, a process which seemed to me to end only at the exact point wheremy questioner could no longer remember the name of anything in theuniverse about which he could frame an interrogation, it was my turn toask questions.

Was the person I was addressing the gentleman who needed the companion?

No, he was merely his agent. As a matter of fact the person on whosebehalf he was acting was an American.

I nodded in a non-committal way.

He was also a millionaire.

I bowed the kind of bow that a Frenchman makes when he says Maisparfaitement.

Furthermore he was totally blind.

"Joseph Pulitzer," I said.

"How in the world did you guess that?" asked my companion.

"That wasn't a guess," I replied. "You advertised for an intelligentman; and this is simply where my intelligence commences to show itself.An intelligent man couldn't live as long as I have in the United Stateswithout hearing a good deal about Joseph Pulitzer; and, after all, thecountry isn't absolutely overrun with blind millionaires."

At the close of the interview I was told that I would be reported upon.In the meantime would I kindly send in a written account of theinterview, in the fullest possible detail, as a test of my memory, senseof accuracy, and literary style.

Nor was this all. As I prepared to take my departure I was handed theaddress of another gentleman who would also examine me and make areport. Before I got out of the room my inquisitor said, "It mayinterest you to know that we have had more than six hundred applicationsfor the post, and that it may, therefore, take some time before thematter is definitely settled."

I was appalled. Evidently I had been wasting my time, for I could haveno doubt that the gallant six hundred would include a sample of everykind of pundit, stationary or vagrant, encompassed within the sevenseas; and against such competition I felt my chances to be justprecisely nothing.

My companion observed my discomfiture. and as he shook hands he said,"Oh, that doesn't really mean very much. As a matter of fact we wereable to throw out more than five hundred and fifty applications merelyfor self-evident reasons. A number of school teachers and bank clerksapplied, and in general these gentlemen said that although they had nottraveled they would have no objection to living abroad, and that theymight venture to hope that if they DID go to sea they would prove to begood sailors.

"Most of them appeared to think that the circ*mstance of being middle-aged would off-set their deficiencies in other directions. There arereally only a few gentlemen whom we can consider as being likely to meetMr. Pulitzer's requirements, and the selection will be made finally byMr. Pulitzer himself. It is very probable that you will be asked to goto Mentone to spend a fortnight or so on Mr. Pulitzer's yacht or at hisvilla at Cap Martin, as he never engages anybody until he has had thecandidate with him for a short visit.

"And, by the way, would you mind writing a short narrative of your life,not more than two thousand words? It would interest Mr. Pulitzer andwould help him to reach a decision in your case. You might also send mecopies of some of your writings."

Thus ended my interview with Mr. James M. Tuohy, the Londoncorrespondent of the New York World.

My next step was to call upon the second inquisitor, Mr. George Ledlie.
I found him comfortably installed at an hotel in the West End. He was an
American, very courteous and pleasant, but evidently prepared to use a
probe without any consideration for the feelings of the victim.

As my business was to reveal myself, I wasted no time, and for about anhour I rambled along on the subject of my American experiences. I do notknow to this day what sort of an impression I created upon thisgentleman, but I felt at the time that it ought to have been a favorableone.

We had many friends in common; I had recently been offered a lectureshipin the university from which he had graduated; some of my books had beenpublished in America by firms in whose standing he had confidence; Iparaded a slight acquaintance with three Presidents of the UnitedStates, and produced from my pocketbook letters from two of them; wefound that we were both respectful admirers of a charming lady who hadrecently undergone a surgical operation; he had been a guest at my clubin Boston, I had been a guest at his club in New York. When I left him Ithought poorly of the chances of the remnant of the six hundred.

Some weeks passed and I heard nothing more of the matter. During thistime I had leisure to think over what I had heard from time to timeabout Joseph Pulitzer, and to speculate, with the aid of someimaginative friends, upon the probable advantages and disadvantages ofthe position for which I was a candidate.

Gathered together, my second-hand impressions of Joseph Pulitzer madelittle more than a hazy outline. I had heard or read that he had landedin New York in the early sixties, a penniless youth unable to speak aword of English; that after a remarkable series of adventures he hadbecome a newspaper proprietor and, later, a millionaire; that he hadbeen stricken blind at the height of his career; that his friends andhis enemies agreed in describing him as a man of extraordinary abilityand of remarkable character; that he had been victorious in a bittercontroversy with President Roosevelt; that one of the Rothschilds hadremarked that if Joseph Pulitzer had not lost his eyesight and hishealth he, Pulitzer, would have collected into his hands all the moneythere was; that he was the subject of one of the noblest portraitscreated by the genius of John Sargent; and that he spent most of histime on board a magnificent yacht, surrounded by a staff of sixsecretaries.

This was enough, of course, to inspire me with a keen desire to meet Mr.Pulitzer; it was not enough to afford me the slightest idea of what lifewould be like in close personal contact with such a man.

The general opinion of my friends was that life with Mr. Pulitzer wouldbe one long succession of happy, care-free days spent along thelanguorous shores of the Mediterranean—days of which perhaps two hourswould be devoted to light conversation with my interesting host, and theremainder of my waking moments to the gaities of Monte Carlo, to rambleson the picturesque hillsides of Rapallo and Bordighera, or to the genialcompanionship of my fellow-secretaries under the snowy awnings of theyacht.

We argued the matter out to our entire satisfaction. Mr. Pulitzer, inaddition to being blind, was a chronic invalid, requiring a great dealof sleep and repose. He could hardly be expected to occupy more thantwelve hours a day with his secretaries. That worked out at two hoursapiece, or, if the division was made by days, about one day a week toeach secretary.

The yacht, I had been given to understand, cruised for about eightmonths in the year over a course bounded by Algiers and the Piraeus, byMentone and Alexandria, with visits to the ports of Italy, Sicily,Corsica, and Crete. The least imaginative of mortals could make a veryfair and alluring picture of what life would be like under suchcirc*mstances. As the event turned out it was certainly not ourimaginations that were at fault.

As time passed without bringing any further sign from Mr. Tuohy my hopesgradually died out, and I fixed in my mind a date upon which I wouldabandon all expectations of securing the appointment. Scarcely had Ireached this determination when I received a telegram from Mr. Tuohyasking me to lunch with him the next day at the Cafe Royal in order tomeet Mr. Ralph Pulitzer, who was passing through London on his way backto America after a visit to his father.

I leave my readers to imagine what sort of a lunch I had in the companyof two gentlemen whose duty it was to struggle with the problem ofdiscovering the real character and attainments of a guest who knew hewas under inspection.

I found Mr. Ralph Pulitzer to be a slender, clean-cut, pale gentleman ofan extremely quiet and self-possessed manner. He was very agreeable, andhe listened to my torrent of words with an interest which, if it werereal, reflected great credit on me, and which, if it were feigned,reflected not less credit on him.

As we parted he said, "I shall write to my father to-day and tell him ofour meeting. Of course, as you know, the decision in this matter restsentirely with him."

After this incident there was another long silence, and I again fixedupon a day beyond which I would not allow my hopes to flourish. The dayarrived, nothing happened, and the next morning I went down to theoffices of the West India Royal Mail Steam Packet Company and madeinquiries about the boats for Barbados. I spent the afternoon at my clubmaking out a list of things to be taken out as aids to comfortablehousekeeping in a semi-tropical country—a list which swelled amazinglyas I turned over the fascinating pages of the Army and Navy StoresCatalogue.

By dinner time I had become more than reconciled to the new turn ofaffairs, and when I reached my flat at midnight I found myself impatientof the necessary delay before I could settle down to a life of easyliterary activity in one of the most delightful climates in the worldand in the neighborhood of a large circle of charming friends andacquaintances.

On the table in the hall I found a telegram from Mr. Tuohy instructingme to start next morning for Mentone, where Mr. Pulitzer would entertainme as his guest for a fortnight, either at his villa or aboard his yachtLiberty, and informing me that I would find at my club early in themorning an envelope containing a ticket to Mentone, with sleeper andparlor-car accommodation, and a check to cover incidental expenses.

The tickets and the check were accompanied by a letter in which I wastold that I was to consider this two weeks' visit as a trial, thatduring that time all my expenses would be paid, that I would receive anhonorarium of so much a day from the time I left London until I wasengaged by Mr. Pulitzer or had arrived back in London after rejection byhim, and that everything depended upon the impression I made on my host.

I left London cold, damp, and foggy; and in less than twenty-four hoursI was in the train between Marseilles and Mentone, watching the surfplaying among the rocks in the brilliant sunshine of the Cote d'Azur. Inthe tiny harbor of Mentone I found, anchored stern-on to the quay, thesteam yacht Liberty—a miracle of snowy decks and gleaming brass-work—tonnage 1,607, length over all 316 feet, beam 35.6 feet, crew 60, alltold.

A message from Mr. Pulitzer awaited me. Would I dine at his villa at Cap
Martin? An automobile would call for me at seven o'clock.

I spent the day in looking over the yacht and in trying to pick up someinformation as to the general lay of the land, by observing every detailof my new surroundings.

The yacht itself claimed my first attention. Everything was new andfascinating to me, for although I had had my share of experiences inbarques, and brigs, and full-rigged ships, in mail boats and trampsteamers, only once before had I had an opportunity to examine closely alarge private yacht. Ten years before, I had spent some time cruisingalong the northern coast of Borneo in the yacht of His Highness SirCharles Brooke, Raja of Sarawak; but with that single exception yachtingwas for me an unknown phase of sea life.

The Liberty—or, as the secretarial staff, for reasons which will becomeapparent later, called her, the Liberty, Ha! Ha!—was designed and builton the Clyde. I have never seen a vessel of more beautiful lines.Sailors would find, I think, but one fault in her appearance and onepeculiarity. With a white-painted hull, her bridge and the whole of herupper structure, except the masts and funnel, were also white, giving toher general features a certain flatness which masked her fineproportions. Her bridge, instead of being well forward, was placed sofar aft that it was only a few feet from the funnel. The object of thisdeparture from custom was to prevent any walking over Mr. Pulitzer'shead when he sat in his library, which was situated under the spot,where the bridge would have been in most vessels.

The boat was specially designed to meet Mr. Pulitzer's peculiarrequirements. She had a flush deck from the bows to the stern, brokenonly, for perhaps twenty feet, by a well between the forecastle head andthe fore part of the bridge.

Running aft from the bridge to within forty feet of the stern was anunbroken line of deck houses. Immediately afore the bridge was Mr.Pulitzer's library, a handsome room lined from floor to ceiling withbooks; abaft of that was the dining saloon, which could accommodate incomfort a dozen people; continuing aft there were, on the port side, thepantry, amidships the enclosed space over the engine room, and on thestarboard side a long passage leading to the drawing-room and writing-room used by the secretaries and by members of Mr. Pulitzer's familywhen they were on the yacht.

The roof and sides of this line of deck houses were extended a few feetbeyond the aftermost room, so as to provide a sheltered nook where Mr.Pulitzer could sit when the wind was too strong for his comfort on theopen deck.

Between the sides of the deck houses and the sides of the ship there ranon each side a promenade about nine feet broad, unbroken by bolt or nut,stanchion or ventilator, smooth as a billiard table and made of thefinest quality of seasoned teak. The promenade continued across the forepart of Mr. Pulitzer's library and across the after part of the line ofdeck houses, so that there was an oblong track round the greater part ofthe boat, a track covered overhead with double awnings and protectedinboard by the sides of the deck houses, and outboard by adjustablecanvas screens, which could be let down or rolled up in a few minutes.

About thirty feet from the stern a heavy double canvas screen ran'thwartships from one side of the boat to the other, shutting off asmall space of deck for the use of the crew. The main deck space wasallotted as follows: under the forecastle head accommodation for twoofficers and two petty officers, abaft of that the well space, of whichI have spoken; under the library was Mr. Pulitzer's bedroom, occupyingthe whole breadth of the ship and extending from the bulkhead at theafter part of the well space as far aft as the companion way leadingdown between the library and the saloon, say twenty-five feet.

A considerable proportion of the sides of this bedroom was given up tobooks; in one corner was a very high wash-hand-stand, so high that Mr.Pulitzer, who was well over six feet tall, could wash his hands withoutstooping. The provision of this very high wash-hand-stand illustratesthe minute care with which everything had been foreseen in theconstruction and fitting-up of the yacht. When a person stoops there isa slight impediment to the free flow of blood to the head, such animpediment might react unfavorably on the condition of Mr. Pulitzer'seyes, therefore the wash-hand-stand was high enough to be used withoutstooping.

In the forward bulkhead of the cabin were two silent fans, one drawingair into the room, the other drawing it out. The most striking featureof the room was an immense four-poster bed which stood in the center ofthe cabin, with a couch at the foot and one or two chairs at one side.Hanging at the head of the bed was a set of electric push-bells, thecords being of different lengths so that Mr. Pulitzer could call at willfor the major-domo, the chief steward, the captain, the officer onwatch, and so on.

The bedroom was heavily carpeted and was cut off from the rest of theship by double bulkheads, double doors, and double portholes, with theobject of protecting Mr. Pulitzer as much as possible from all noise, towhich he was excessively sensitive. A large bathroom opened immediatelyoff the bedroom, and a flight of steps led down to a gymnasium on thelower deck.

Abaft of Mr. Pulitzer's bedroom there were, on the port side, the cabinsof the major-domo, the captain, the head butler, the chief engineer, anofficers' mess room, the ship's galley, a steward's mess room, and thecabins of the chief steward and one or two officers.

Corresponding with these there were, on the starboard side, the cabinsof the secretaries and the doctor, "The Cells," as we called them. Theywere comfortable rooms, all very much on one pattern, except that of thebusiness secretary, which was a good deal larger than the others. Heneeded the additional space for newspaper files, documents,correspondence, and so on. Each cabin contained a bed, a wash-hand-stand, a chest of drawers, a cupboard for clothes, a small foldingtable, some book shelves, an arm chair, an ordinary chair, an electricfan, and a radiator. Each cabin had two portholes, and there were twobathrooms to the six cabins.

The center of the ship, between these cabins and the corresponding spaceon the port side, was occupied by the engine room; and the entrance tothe secretaries' quarters was through a companionway opening on to thepromenade deck, with a door on each side of the yacht, and leading downa flight of stairs to a long fore-and-aft passage, out of which all thesecretaries' cabins opened.

Abaft the secretaries' cabins, and occupying the whole breadth of theboat, were a number of cabins and suites for the accommodation of Mrs.Pulitzer, other members of the family, and guests; and abaft of these,cut off by a 'thwartships bulkhead, were the quarters of the crew.

The lower deck was given over chiefly to stores, coal bunkers, theengine room, the stoke-hold, and to a large number of electricaccumulators, which kept the electric lights going when the engines werenot working. There were, however, on this deck the gymnasium, and alarge room, directly under Mr. Pulitzer's bedroom, used to take theoverflow from the library.

The engines were designed rather for smooth running than for speed, andtwelve knots an hour was the utmost that could be got out of them, theaverage running speed being about eight knots. The yacht had an amplesupply of boats, including two steam launches, one burning coal, theother oil.

During my inspection of the yacht I was accompanied by my cabin-steward,a young Englishman who had at one time served aboard the GermanEmperor's yacht, Meteor. Nothing could have been more courteous than hismanner or more intelligent than his explanations; but the moment I triedto draw him out on the subject of life on the yacht he relapsed into avagueness from which I could extract no gleam of enlightenment. Afterfencing for some time with my queries he suggested that I might like tohave a glass of sherry and a biscuit in the secretaries' library, and,piloting me thither, he left me.

The smoking-room was furnished with writing tables, some luxurious armchairs, and a comfortable lounge, and every spare nook was filled withbook shelves. The contents of these shelves were extremely varied. Acursory glance showed me Meyer's Neues Konversations-Lexicon, The YachtRegister, Whitaker's Almanack, Who's Who, Burke's Peerage, The Almanackde Gotha, the British and the Continental Bradshaw, a number ofBaedeker's "Guides," fifty or sixty volumes of the Tauchnitz edition, alarge collection of files of reviews and magazines—The NineteenthCentury, Quarterly, Edinburgh, Fortnightly, Contemporary, National,Atlantic, North American, Revue de Deux Mondes—and a scattering ofvolumes by Kipling, Shaw, Hosebery, Pater, Ida Tarbell, Bryce, Ferrero,Macaulay, Anatole France, Maupassant, "Dooley," and a large number ofFrench and German plays. I was struck by the entire absence of books oftravel and scientific works.

I spent part of the afternoon in the drawing-room playing a largeinstrument of the gramophone type. There were several hundred records—from grand opera, violin solos by Kreisler, and the Gilbert and Sullivanoperas, to rag-time and the latest comic songs.

Before the time came to dress for dinner I had met the captain and someof the officers of the yacht. They were all very civil; and my ownexperience as a sailor enabled me to see that they were highly efficientmen. I was a good deal puzzled, however, by something peculiar but veryelusive in their attitude toward me, something which I had at oncedetected in the manner of my cabin-steward.

With their courtesy was mingled a certain flavor of curiosity tingedwith amusem*nt, which, so far from being offensive, was distinctlyfriendly, but which, nevertheless, gave me a vague sense of uneasiness.In fact the whole atmosphere of the yacht was one of restlessness andsuspense; and the effect was heightened because each person who spoke tome appeared to be on the point of divulging some secret or deliveringsome advice, which discretion checked at his lips.

I felt myself very much under observation, a feeling as though I was anew boy in a boarding school or a new animal at the zoo—interesting tomy companions not only on account of my novelty, but because my personalpeculiarities would affect the comfort of the community of which I wasto become a member.

At seven o'clock my cabin-steward announced the arrival of theautomobile, and after a swift run along the plage and up the windingroads on the hillsides of Cap Martin I found myself at the door of Mr.Pulitzer's villa. I was received by the major-domo, ushered into thedrawing-room, and informed that Mr. Pulitzer would be down in a fewminutes.

CHAPTER II

MEETING JOSEPH PULITZER

Before I had time to examine my surroundings Mr. Pulitzer entered theroom on the arm of the major-domo. My first swift impression was of avery tall man with broad shoulders, the rest of the body tapering awayto thinness, with a noble head, bushy reddish beard streaked with gray,black hair, swept back from the forehead and lightly touched here andthere with silvery white. One eye was dull and half closed, the otherwas of a deep, brilliant blue which, so far from suggesting blindness,created the instant effect of a searching, eagle-like glance. Theoutstretched hand was large, strong, nervous, full of character, endingin well-shaped and immaculately kept nails.

A high-pitched voice, clear, penetrating, and vibrant, gave out thestrange challenge: "Well, here you see before you the miserable wreckwho is to be your host; you must make the best you can of him. Give meyour arm into dinner."

I may complete here a description of Mr. Pulitzer's appearance, foundedupon months of close personal association with him. The head wassplendidly modeled, the forehead high, the brows prominent and arched;the ears were large, the nose was long and hooked; the mouth, almostconcealed by the mustache, was firm and thin-lipped; the jaws showedsquare and powerful under the beard; the length of the face was muchemphasized by the flowing beard and by the way in which the hair wasbrushed back from the forehead. The skin was of a clear, healthy pink,like a young girl's; but in moments of intense excitement the colorwould deepen to a dark, ruddy flush, and after a succession of sleeplessnights, or under the strain of continued worry, it would turn a dull,lifeless gray.

I have never seen a face which varied so much in expression. Not onlywas there a marked difference at all times between one side and theother, due partly to the contrast between the two eyes and partly to aloss of flexibility in the muscles of the right side, but almost frommoment to moment the general appearance of the face moved between alively, genial animation, a cruel and wolf-like scowl, and a heavy andhopeless dejection. No face was capable of showing greater tenderness;none could assume a more forbidding expression of anger and contempt.

The Sargent portrait, a masterpiece of vivid character-painting, is aremarkable revelation of the complex nature of its subject. It disclosesthe deep affection, the keen intelligence, the wide sympathy, thetireless energy, the delicate sensitiveness, the tearing impatience, thecold tyranny, and the flaming scorn by which his character was soerratically dominated. It is a noble and pathetic monument to thesuffering which had been imposed for a quarter of a century upon theintense and arbitrary spirit of this extraordinary man.

The account which I am to give of Mr. Pulitzer's daily life during themonths immediately preceding his death would be unintelligible to allbut the very few who knew him in recent years if it were not prefaced bya brief biographical note.

Joseph Pulitzer was born in the village of Mako, near Buda Pesth inHungary, on April 10, 1847. His father was a Jew, his mother aChristian. At the age of sixteen he emigrated to the United States. Helanded without friends, without money, unable to speak a word ofEnglish. He enlisted immediately in the First New York (Lincoln) CavalryRegiment, a regiment chiefly composed of Germans and in which German wasthe prevailing tongue.

Within a year the Civil War ended, and Pulitzer found himself, in commonwith hundreds of thousands of others, out of employment at a time whenemployment was most difficult to secure. At this time he was so poorthat he was turned away from French's Hotel for lack of fifty cents withwhich to pay for his bed. In less than twenty years he bought French'sHotel, pulled it down, and erected in its place the Pulitzer Building,at that time one of the largest business buildings in New York, where hehoused The World.

What lay between these two events may be summed up in a few words. Atthe close of the Civil War Mr. Pulitzer went to St. Louis, and in 1868,after being engaged in various occupations, he became a reporter on theWestliche Post. In less than ten years he was editor and partproprietor. His amazing energy, his passionate interest in politics, hisrare gift of terse and forcible expression, and his striking personalitycarried him over or through all obstacles.

After he had purchased the St. Louis Dispatch, amalgamated it with thePost, and made the Post-Dispatch a profitable business enterprise and apower to be reckoned with in politics, he felt the need of a wider fieldin which to maneuver the forces of his character and his intellect.

He came to New York in 1883 and purchased The World from Jay Gould. Atthat time The World had a circulation of less than twelve thousandcopies a day, and was practically bankrupt. From this time forward Mr.Pulitzer concentrated his every faculty on building up The World. He wasscoffed at, ridiculed, and abused by the most powerful editors of theold school. They were to learn, not without bitterness and wounds, thatopposition was the one fuel of all others which best fed the tripleflame of his courage, his tenacity, and his resourcefulness.

Four years of unremitting toil produced two results. The World reached acirculation of two hundred thousand copies a day and took its place inthe front rank of the American press as a journal of force and ability,and Joseph Pulitzer left New York, a complete nervous wreck, to face insolitude the knowledge that he would never read print again and thatwithin a few years he would be totally blind.

Joseph Pulitzer, as I knew him twenty-four years after he had beendriven from active life by the sudden and final collapse of his health,was a man who could be judged by no common standards, for his feelings,his temper, and his point of view had been warped by years of suffering.

Had his spirit been broken by his trials, had his intellectual powerweakened under the load of his affliction, had his burning interest inaffairs cooled to a point where he could have been content to turn hisback upon life's conflict, he might have found some happiness, or atleast some measure of repose akin to that with which age consoles us forthe loss of youth. But his greatest misfortune was that all the activeforces of his personality survived to the last in their full vigor,inflicting upon him the curse of an impatience which nothing couldappease, of a discontent which knew no amelioration.

My first meeting with Mr. Pulitzer is indelibly fixed in my memory. Aswe entered the dining-room the butler motioned to me to take a seat onMr. Pulitzer's right hand, and as I did so I glanced up and down thetable to find myself in the presence of half-a-dozen gentlemen inevening dress, who bowed in a very friendly manner as Mr. Pulitzer said,with a broad sweep of his hand, "Gentlemen, this is Mr. Alleyne Ireland;you will be able to inform him later of my fads and crotchets; well,don't be ungenerous with me, don't paint the devil as black as he is."

This was spoken in a tone of banter, and was cut short by a curious,prolonged chuckle, which differed from laughter in the feeling itproduced in the hearer that the mirth did not spring from the open,obvious humor of the situation, but from some whimsical thought whichwas the more relished because its nature was concealed from us. I feltthat, instead of my host's amusem*nt having been produced by hispeculiar introduction, he had made his eccentric address merely as anexcuse to chuckle over some notion which had formed itself in his mindfrom material entirely foreign to his immediate surroundings.

I mention this because I found later that one of Mr. Pulitzer's mostembarrassing peculiarities was the sudden revelation from time to timeof a mental state entirely at odds with the occupation of the moment. Inthe middle of an account of a play, when I was doing my best toreproduce some scene from memory, with appropriate changes of voice torepresent the different characters, Mr. Pulitzer would suddenly breakin, "Did we ever get a reply to that letter about Laurier's speech onreciprocity? No? Well, all right, go on, go on."

Or it might be when I was reading from the daily papers an account of amurder or a railroad wreck that Mr. Pulitzer would break out into a pealof his peculiar chuckling laughter. I would immediately stop reading,when he would pat me on the arm, and say, "Go on, boy, go on, don't mindme. I wasn't laughing at you. I was thinking of something else. What wasit? Oh, a railroad wreck, well, don't stop, go on reading."

As soon as we were seated Mr. Pulitzer turned to me and began toquestion me about my reading. Had I read any recent fiction? No? Well,what had I read within the past month?

I named several books which I had been re-reading—Macaulay's Essays,
Meredith Townsend's Asia and Europe, and Lowes Dickinson's Modern
Symposium.

"Well, tell me something about Asia and Europe" he said.

I left my dinner untasted, and for a quarter of an hour held forth onthe life of Mohammed, on the courage of the Arabians, on the charm ofAsia for Asiatics, and on other matters taken from Mr. Townsend'sfascinating book. Suddenly Mr. Pulitzer interrupted me.

"My God! You don't mean to tell me that anyone is interested in thatsort of rubbish. Everybody knows about Mohammed, and about the braveryof the Arabs, and, for God's sake, why shouldn't Asia be attractive tothe Asiatics! Try something else. Do you remember any plays?"

Yes, I remembered several pretty well. Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra forinstance.

"Go on, then, try and tell me about that."

My prospects of getting any dinner faded away as I began my new effort.Fortunately I knew the play very well, and remembered a number ofpassages almost word for word. I soon saw that Mr. Pulitzer wasinterested and pleased, not with the play as anything new to him, for heprobably knew it better than I did, but with my presentation of it,because it showed some ability to compress narrative without destroyingits character and also gave some proof of a good memory.

When I reached the scene in which Caesar replies to Britannus's protestagainst the recognition of Cleopatra's marriage to her brother, Ptolemy,by saying, "Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks thatthe customs of his tribe are the laws of nature," Mr. Pulitzer burstinto an uncontrollable fit of laughter.

I was about to continue, and try to make good better, when Mr. Pulitzerraised his hands above his head in remonstrance.

"Stop! Stop! For God's sake! You're hurting me," very much as a personwith a cracked lip begs for mercy when you are in the middle of yourmost humorous story.

I found out later that, in order to keep in Mr. Pulitzer's good graces,it was as necessary to avoid being too funny as it was to avoid beingtoo dull, for, while the latter fault hurt his intellectualsensitiveness, the former involved, through the excessive laughter itproduced, a degree of involuntary exertion which, in his disorderedphysical condition, caused him acute pain.

Mr. Pulitzer's constant use of the exclamations "My God!" and "For God'ssake!" had no relation whatever to swearing, as the term is usuallyunderstood; they were employed exactly as a French lady employs theexclamation Mon Dieu! or a German the expression Ach, du liebe Gott! Asa matter of fact, although Mr. Pulitzer was a man of strong and, attimes, violent emotions, and, from his deplorable nervous state,excessively irritable, I do not think that in the eight months I waswith him, during the greater part of which time he was not under anyrestraining influence, such as might be exerted by the presence ofladies, I heard him use any oath except occasionally a "damn," whichappealed to him, I think, as a suitable if not a necessary qualificationof the word "fool." For Mr. Pulitzer there were no fools except damnedfools.

After the excitement about Caesar and Cleopatra had subsided, Mr.Pulitzer asked me if I had a good memory. I hesitated before replying,because I had seen enough of Mr. Pulitzer in an hour to realize that aconstant exercise of caution would be necessary if I wished to avoidoffending his prejudices or wounding his susceptibilities; and whereason the one hand I did not wish to set a standard for myself which Iwould find it impossible to live up to, on the other hand I was anxiousto avoid giving any description of my abilities which would be followedlater by a polite intimation from the major-domo that Mr. Pulitzer hadenjoyed my visit immensely but that I was not just the man for theplace.

So I compromised and said that I had a fairly good memory.

"Well, everybody thinks he's got a good memory," replied Mr. Pulitzer.

"I only claimed a fairly good one," I protested.

"Oh! that's just an affectation; as a matter of fact you think you'vegot a splendid memory, don't you? Now, be frank about it; I love peopleto be frank with me."

My valor got the better of my discretion, and I replied that if hereally wished me to be frank I was willing to admit that I had noparticular desire to lay claim to a good memory, for I was inclined toaccept the view which I had once heard expressed by a very wise man ofmy acquaintance that the human mind was not intended to remember withbut to think with, and that one of the greatest benefits which had beenconferred on mankind by the discovery of printing was that thousands ofthings could be recorded for reference which former generations had beencompelled to learn by rote.

"Your wise friend," he cried, "was a damned fool! If you will give thematter a moment's thought you'll see that memory is the highest facultyof the human mind. What becomes of all your reading, all yourobservation, your experience, study, investigations, discussions—in arushing crescendo—if you have no memory?"

"I might reply," I said, "by asking what use it is to lumber up yourmind with a mass of information of which you are only going to make anoccasional use when you can have it filed away in encyclopedias andother works of reference, and in card indexes, instantly available whenyou want it."

I spoke in a light and rather humorous tone in order to take the edgeoff my dissent from his opinion, reflecting that even between friendsand equals a demand for frankness is most safely to be regarded as adanger signal to impulsiveness; but it was too late, I had evidentlyoverstepped the mark, for Mr. Pulitzer turned abruptly from me withoutreplying, and began to talk to the gentleman on his left.

This had the twofold advantage of giving me time to reconsider mystrategy, and to eat some dinner, which one of the footmen, evidentlythe kind with a memory for former experiences, had set on one side andkept warm against the moment when I would be free to enjoy it.

As I ate I listened to the conversation. It made my heart sink. Thegentleman to whom Mr. Pulitzer had transferred his attentions was aScotchman, Mr. William Romaine Paterson. I discovered later that he wasthe nearest possible approach to a walking encyclopedia. His range ofinformation was—well, I am tempted to say, infamous. He appeared tohave an exhaustive knowledge of French, German, Italian, and Englishliterature, of European history in its most complicated ramifications,and of general biography in such a measure that, in regard to people aswell known as Goethe, Voltaire, Kossuth, Napoleon, Garibaldi, Bismarck,and a score of others, he could fix a precise day on which any event orconversation had taken place, and recall it in its minutest details.

It was not simply from the standpoint of my own ignorance thatPaterson's store of knowledge assumed such vast proportions, for it wasseldom opened except in the presence of Mr. Pulitzer, in whom werecombined a tenacious memory, a profound acquaintance with the subjectswhich Paterson had taken for his province, an analytic mind, and a zestfor contradiction. Everything Paterson said was immediately pounced uponby a vigorous, astute, and well-informed critic who derived peculiarsatisfaction from the rare instances in which he could detect him in aninaccuracy.

The conversation between Mr. Pulitzer and Paterson, or, rather,Paterson's frequently interrupted monologue, lasted until we had allfinished dinner, and the butler had lighted Mr. Pulitzer's cigar. In themiddle of an eloquent passage from Paterson, Mr. Pulitzer rose, turnedabruptly toward me, held out his hand, and said, "I'm very glad to havemet you, Mr. Ireland; you have entertained me very much. Please comehere to-morrow at eleven o'clock, and I'll take you out for a drive.Good-night." He took Paterson's arm and left the room.

The door, like all the doors in Mr. Pulitzer's various residences, shutautomatically and silently; and after one of the secretaries had drawn aheavy velvet curtain across the doorway, so that not the faintest soundcould escape from the room, I was chaffed good-naturedly about my debutas a candidate. To my great surprise I was congratulated on having donevery well.

"You made a great hit," said one, "with your account of Shaw's play."

"I nearly burst out laughing," said another, "when you gave your viewsabout memory. I think you're dead right about it; but J. P.—Mr.Pulitzer was always referred to as J. P.—is crazy about people havinggood memories, so if you've really got a good memory you'd better lethim find it out."

I was told that, so far as we were concerned, the day's work, or atleast that portion of it which involved being with J. P., was to beconsidered over as soon as he retired to the library after dinner. Hisobject then was to be left alone with one secretary, who read to himuntil about ten o'clock, when the major-domo came and took him to hisrooms for the night. As a rule, J. P. made no further demand on thebodily presence of his secretaries after he had gone to bed, butoccasionally, when he could not sleep, one of them would be called,perhaps at three in the morning, to read to him.

This meant in practice that, when we were ashore, one, or more usuallytwo of us, would remain in the house in case of emergency. This did notby any means imply that we were always free from work after ten o'clockat night, in fact the very opposite was true, for it was J. P.'s customto say, during dinner, that on the following day he would ride, drive,or walk with such a one or such a one, naming him; and the victim—aterm frequently used with a good deal of surprisingly frank enjoyment byJ. P. himself—had often to work well into the night preparing materialfor conversation.

I saw something of what this preparation meant before I left the villaafter my first meeting with J. P. Two of the secretaries said they wouldgo over to Monte Carlo, and they asked me to go with them; but Ideclined, preferring to remain behind for a chat with one of thesecretaries, Mr. Norman G. Thwaites, an Englishman, who was secretary ina more technical sense than any of the rest of us, for he was ashorthand writer and did most of J. P.'s correspondence.

After the others had gone he showed me a table in the entrance hall ofthe villa, on which was a big pile of mail just arrived from London. Itincluded a great number of newspapers and weeklies, several copies ofeach. There were The Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Daily Mail, TheMorning Post, The Daily News, The Westminster Gazette, Truth, TheSpectator, The Saturday Review, The Nation, The Outlook, and some otherLondon publications, as well as the Paris editions of the New YorkHerald and The Daily Mail.

Thwaites selected a copy of each and then led the way to his bedroom, alarge room on the top floor, from which we could see across the bay thebrilliant lights of Monte Carlo.

He then explained to me that he had been selected to read to J. P.whilst the latter had his breakfast and his after-breakfast cigar thenext morning. In order to do this satisfactorily he had to go over thepapers and read carefully whatever he could find that was suited to J.P.'s taste at that particular time of the day. During the breakfast hourJ. P. would not have anything read to him which was of an excitingnature. This preference excluded political news, crime, disaster, andwar correspondence, and left practically nothing but book reviews,criticisms of plays, operas, and art exhibitions, and publishers'announcements.

The principal sources of information on these topics were the literarysupplement of the London Times, the Literary Digest, and the literary,dramatic, and musical columns of the Athenaeum, The Spectator, and theSaturday Review.

These had to be "prepared," to use J. P.'s phrase, which meant that theywere read over rapidly once and then gone over again with someconcentration so that the more important articles could be marked foractual reading, the other portions being dealt with conversationally,everything being boiled down to its essence before it reached Mr.Pulitzer's ear.

As it was getting late, and as I knew that Thwaites would be on tapearly in the morning, for J. P. usually breakfasted before nine, and the"victim" was supposed to have had his own breakfast by eight, I left thevilla and went back to the yacht.

As he said good-night, Thwaites gave me a copy of The Daily Telegraphand advised me to read it carefully, as J. P. might ask me for the day'snews during the drive we were to take the following morning.

Before going to sleep I glanced through The Daily Telegraph and cameacross an article which gave me an idea for establishing my reputationfor memory. It was a note about the death duties which had beencollected in England during 1910, and it gave a list of about twentyestates on which large sums had been paid. The list included the namesof the deceased and also the amounts on which probate duty had beenpaid. I decided to commit these names and figures to memory and to takean occasion the next day to reel them off to J. P.

Punctually at eleven o'clock I presented myself at the villa to find, tomy dismay, J. P. seated in his automobile in a towering rage. What sortof consideration had I for him to keep him waiting for half an hour!

I protested that eleven o'clock was the hour of the appointment. I wasabsolutely wrong, he said, half-past-ten was the time, and he rememberedperfectly naming that hour, because he wanted a long drive and he had anengagement with Mr. Paterson at noon.

"I'm awfully sorry," I began, "if I misunderstood you, but really…"

He dismissed the matter abruptly by saying, "For God's sake, don't argueabout it. Get in and sit next to me so that I can hear you talk."

As soon as we had got clear of the village, and were spinning along at agood rate on the Corniche road, which circles the Bay of Monaco, high onthe mountain side, Mr. Pulitzer began to put me through my paces.

"Now, Mr. Ireland," he began, "you will understand that if anyarrangement is to be concluded between us I must explore your brain,your character, your tastes, your sympathies, your prejudices, yourtemper; I must find out if you have tact, patience, a sense of humor,the gift of condensing information, and, above all, a respect, a love, apassion for accuracy."

I began to speak, but he interrupted me before I had got six words outof my mouth.

"Wait! Wait!" he cried, "let me finish what I have to say. You'll findthis business of being a candidate a very trying and disagreeable one;well, it's damned disagreeable to me, too. What I need is rest, repose,quiet, routine, understanding, sympathy, friendship, yes, my God! thefriendship of those around me. Mr. Ireland, I can do much, I can doeverything for a man who will be my friend. I can give him power, I cangive him wealth, I can give him reputation, the power, the wealth, thereputation which come to a man who speaks to a million people a day inthe columns of a great paper. But how am I to do this? I am blind, I'man invalid; how am I to know whom I can trust? I don't mean in moneymatters; money's nothing to me; it can do nothing for me; I meanmorally, intellectually. I've had scores of people pass through my handsin the last fifteen years—Englishmen, Scotchmen, Irishmen, Welshmen,Germans, Frenchmen, Americans, men of so-called high family, men ofhumble birth, men from a dozen universities, self-taught men, young men,old men, and, my God! what have I found? Arrogance, stupidity,ingratitude, loose thinking, conceit, ignorance, laziness, indifference;absence of tact, discretion, courtesy, manners, consideration, sympathy,devotion; no knowledge, no wisdom, no intelligence, no observation, nomemory, no insight, no understanding. My God! I can hardly believe myown experience when I think of it."

Set down in cold print, this outburst loses almost every trace of itsintensely dramatic character. Mr. Pulitzer spoke as though he weredeclaiming a part in a highly emotional play. At times he turned towardme, his clenched fists raised above his shoulders, at times he threwback his head, flung his outstretched hands at arms' length in front ofhim, as though he were appealing to the earth, to the sea, to the air,to the remote canopy of the sky to hear his denunciation of man'sinefficiency; at times he paused, laid a hand on my arm, and fixed hiseye upon me as if he expected the darkness to yield him some image of mythought. It was almost impossible to believe at such a moment that hewas totally blind, that he could not distinguish night from day.

"Mind!" he continued, raising a cautionary finger, "I'm not making anycriticism of my present staff; you may consider yourself very lucky if Ifind you to have a quarter of the good qualities which any one of themhas; and let me tell you that while you are with me you will do well toobserve these gentlemen and to try and model yourself on them.

"However, all that doesn't matter so much in your case, because there'sno question of your becoming one of my personal staff. I haven't anyvacancy at present, and I don't foresee any. What I want you for issomething quite different."

Imagine my amazement. No vacancy on the staff! What about theadvertisem*nt I had answered? What about all the interviews andcorrespondence, in which a companionship had been the only thingdiscussed? What could the totally different thing be of which Mr.Pulitzer spoke?

In the midst of my confusion Mr. Pulitzer said, "Look out of the windowand tell me what you see. Remember that I am blind, and try and make meget a mental picture of everything—everything, you understand; neverthink that anything is too small or insignificant to be of interest tome; you can't tell what may interest me; always describe everything withthe greatest minuteness, every cloud in the sky, every shadow on thehillside, every tree, every house, every dress, every wrinkle on a face,everything, everything!"

I did my best, and he appeared to be pleased; but before I had halfexhausted the details of the magnificent scene above and below us hestopped me suddenly with a request that I should tell him exactly whathad occurred from the time I had answered his advertisem*nt up to themoment of my arrival at the villa.

This demand placed me in rather an awkward predicament, for I had to tryand reconcile the fact that the advertisem*nt itself as well as all myconversations with his agents and with his son had been directed towardthe idea of a companionship, with his positive assertion that there wasno vacancy on his personal staff and that he wanted me for another, andan undisclosed purpose. Here was a very clear opportunity for destroyingmy reputation, either for tact or for accuracy.

There was, of course, only one thing to do, and that was to tell himexactly what had taken place. This I did, and at the end of my recitalhe said, "It's simply amazing how anyone can get a matter tangled up theway you have. There was never a question of your becoming one of mycompanions. What I want is a man to go out to the Philippines and writea series of vigorous articles showing the bungle we've made of thatbusiness, and paving the way for an agitation in favor of giving theIslands their independence. There'll be a chance of getting that done ifwe elect a Democratic President in 1912."

"Well, sir," I replied, "if the bungle has been as bad as you think Icertainly ought to be able to do the work to your satisfaction. I'mpretty familiar with the conditions of tropical life, I've written agood deal on the subject, I've been in the Philippines and havepublished a book and a number of articles about them, and, although Idon't take as gloomy a view as you do about the administration outthere, I found a good deal to criticize, and if I go out I can certainlydescribe the conditions as they are now, and your editorial writers canput my articles to whatever use they may wish."

"You're going too fast," he said, "and you're altogether too co*ck-sureof your abilities. You mustn't think that because you've writtenarticles for the London Times you are competent to write for The World.It's a very different matter. The American people want something terse,forcible, picturesque, striking, something that will arrest theirattention, enlist their sympathy, arouse their indignation, stimulatetheir imagination, convince their reason, awaken their conscience. Whyshould I accept you at your own estimate? You don't realize theresponsibility I have in this matter. The World isn't like your Times,with its forty or fifty thousand educated readers. It's read by, well,say a million people a day; and it's my duty to see that they get thetruth; but that's not enough, I've got to put it before them briefly sothat they will read it, clearly so that they will understand it,forcibly so that they will appreciate it, picturesquely so that theywill remember it, and, above all, accurately so that they may be wiselyguided by its light. And you come to me, and before you've been here aday you ask me to entrust you with an important mission which concernsthe integrity of my paper, the conscience of my readers, the policy ofmy country, no, my God! you're too co*ck-sure of yourself."

By this time Mr. Pulitzer had worked himself up into a state of painfulexcitement. His forehead was damp with perspiration, he clasped andunclasped his hands, his voice became louder and higher-pitched frommoment to moment; but when he suddenly stopped speaking he calmed downinstantly.

"You shouldn't let me talk so much," he said, without, however,suggesting any means by which I could stop him. "What time is it? Are wenearly home? Well, Mr. Ireland, I'll let you off for the afternoon; goand enjoy yourself and forget all about me." Then, as the auto drew upat the door of the villa, "Come up to dinner about seven and try to beamusing. You did very well last night. I hope you can keep it up. It'smost important that anyone who is to live with me should have a sense ofhumor. I'd be glad to keep a man and pay him a handsome salary if hewould make me laugh once a day. Well, good-by till to-night."

CHAPTER III

LIFE AT CAP MARTIN

There was no lack of humor in Mr. Pulitzer's suggestion that I should goand enjoy myself and forget him. I went down to the yacht, had lunch insolitary state, and then, selecting a comfortable chair in the smoking-room, settled down to think things over.

It soon became clear to me that J. P. was a man of a character socompletely outside the range of my experience that any skill of judgmentI might have acquired through contact with many men of many races wouldavail me little in my intercourse with him.

That he was arbitrary, self-centered, and exacting mattered little tome; it was a combination of qualities which rumor had led me to expectin him, and with which I had become familiar in my acquaintance with menof wide authority and outstanding ability. What disturbed me was thathis blindness, his ill health, and his suffering had united to thesetraits an intense excitability and a morbid nervousness.

My first impulse was to attribute his capriciousness to a weakening ofhis brain power; but I could not reconcile this view with the vigor ofhis thought, with the clearness of his expression, with the amplitude ofhis knowledge, with the scope of his memory as they had been disclosedthe previous night in his conversation with Paterson. No, the fact wasthat I had not found the key to his motives, the cipher running throughthe artificial confusion of his actions.

I could not foresee the issue of the adventure. In the meantime,however, the yacht was a comfortable home, the Cote d'Azur was a newfield of observation, J. P. and his secretaries were extremelyinteresting, the honorarium was accumulating steadily, and in thebackground Barbados still slept in the sunshine, an emerald in asapphire sea.

During the afternoon I had a visit from Jabez E. Dunningham, the major-domo. I pay tribute to him here as one of the most remarkable men I haveever met, an opinion which I formed after months of daily intercoursewith him. He was an Englishman, and he had spent nearly twenty yearswith Mr. Pulitzer, traveling with him everywhere, hardly ever separatedfrom him for more than a few hours, and he was more closely in hisconfidence than anyone outside the family.

He was capable and efficient in the highest degree. His duties rangedfrom those of a nurse to those of a diplomat. He produced, at a moment'snotice, as a conjuror produces rabbits and goldfish, the latest hot-water bottle from a village pharmacy in Elba, special trains fromhaughty and reluctant officials of State railways, bales of newspapersmysteriously collected from clubs, hotels, or consulates in remote andmicroscopic ports, fruits and vegetables out of season, rooms, suites,floors of hotels at the height of the rush in the most crowded resorts,or a dozen cabins in a steamer.

He could open telegraph stations and post offices when they were closedto the native nobility, convert the eager curiosity of port officialsinto a trance-like indifference, or monopolize the services of a wholeadministration, if the comfort, convenience, or caprice of his masterdemanded it.

More than this; if, any of these things having been done, they shouldappear undesirable to Mr. Pulitzer, Dunningham could undo them with thesame magician-like ease as had marked their achievement. A wave of Mr.Pulitzer's hand was translated into action by Dunningham, and the wholeof his arrangements disappeared as completely as if they had neverexisted. The slate was wiped clean, ready in an instant to receive thenew message from Mr. Pulitzer's will.

Dunningham had come to offer me advice. I must not be disturbed by theapparent eccentricity of Mr. Pulitzer's conduct; it was merely part ofMr. Pulitzer's fixed policy to make things as complicated and difficultas possible for a candidate. By adopting this plan he was able todiscover very quickly whether there was any possibility that a new manwould suit him. If the candidate showed impatience or bad temper hecould be got rid of at once; if he showed tact and good humor he wouldgraduate into another series of tests, and so on, step by step, untilthe period of his trying out was ended and he became one of the staff.

A man of my intelligence would, of course, appreciate the advantages ofsuch a method, even from the standpoint of the candidate, for once acandidate had passed the testing stage he would find his relations withMr. Pulitzer much pleasanter and his work less exacting, whereas if hefound at the outset that the conditions were not pleasing to him hecould retire without having wasted much time.

One thing I must bear in mind, namely, that each day which passedwithout Mr. Pulitzer having decided against a candidate increased thecandidate's chances. If a man was to be rejected it was usually doneinside of a week from his first appearance on the scene.

And, by the way, had I ever noticed how people were apt to think thatblind people were deaf? A most curious thing; really nothing in it. TakeMr. Pulitzer, for example, so far from his being deaf he had the mostexquisite sense of hearing, in fact he heard better when people spokebelow rather than above their ordinary tone.

Thus, Dunningham, anxious, in his master's interest, to allay mynervousness, which reacted disagreeably on Mr. Pulitzer, and to make melower my voice.

I went up to the villa during the afternoon to look at the house and, ifpossible, to have a talk with some of the secretaries.

The villa lay on the Western slope of Cap Martin, a few hundred yardsfrom the Villa Cyrnos, occupied by the Empress Eugenie. Seen from theroad there was nothing striking in its appearance, but seen from theother side it was delightful, recalling the drop scene of a theater.Situated on a steep slope, embowered in trees, its broad stone verandaoverhung a series of ornamental terraces decorated with palms, flowers,statuary, and fountains; and where these ended a jumble of rocks andstunted pines fell away abruptly to the blue water of the bay.

The house was large and well designed, but very simple in its furnitureand decorations. The upper rooms on the Western side commanded a superbview of the Bay of Monaco, and of the rugged hillsides above La Turbie,crowned with a vague outline of fortifications against the sky.

In a room at the top of the house I found one of the secretaries, an
Englishman, Mr. George Craven, formerly in the Indian Civil Service in
Rajputana. He was engaged in auditing the accounts of the yacht, but he
readily fell in with my suggestion that we should take a stroll.

"Right-ho!" he said. "I'm sick of these beastly accounts. But we mustfind out what J. P.'s doing first."

It appeared that J. P. had motored over to Monte Carlo to hear aconcert, and that he wasn't expected back for an hour or more. As westopped in the entrance hall to get our hats I struck a match on thesole of my shoe, intending to light a cigarette.

"By Jove! Don't do that, for Heaven's sake," said Craven, "or there'llbe a frightful row when J. P. comes in. He can't stand cigarette smoke,and he's got a sense of smell as keen as a setter's."

We went into the garden and followed a narrow path which led down to thewaterside. We talked about J. P. As a matter of fact, J. P. was theprincipal topic of conversation whenever two of his secretaries foundthemselves together.

Craven, however, had only been with J. P. for a few weeks, having beenone of the batch sifted out of the six hundred who had answered theTimes advertisem*nt. He was almost as much in the dark as I was inregard to the real J. P. that existed somewhere behind the mask whichwas always held out in front of every emotion, every thought, everyintention.

The life was difficult, he found, and extremely laborious. When itsuited his book J. P. could be one of the most fascinating andentertaining of men, but when it didn't, well, he wasn't. The truth wasthat you could never tell what he really thought at any moment; it madeyou feel as though you were blind and not he; you found yourself gropingaround all the time for a good lead and coming unexpectedly up against astone wall.

"I've been with him a couple of months," he said, "and I haven't theslightest idea whether he thinks me a good sort or a silly ass, and Idon't suppose I ever shall know. By Jove, there he is now!" as we heardthe crunch of tires on the drive. "Excuse me if I make a run for it; hemay want me any minute. See you later."

At dinner that night Mr. Pulitzer devoted his whole attention to layingbare the vast areas of ignorance on the map of my information. Hecarried me from country to country, from century to century, throughhistory, art, literature, biography, economics, music, the drama, andcurrent politics. Whenever he hit upon some small spot where myinvestigations had lingered and where my memory served me he left itimmediately, with the remark, "Well, I don't care about that; thatdoesn't amount to anything, anyhow."

It was worse than useless to make any pretense of knowing things, for ifyou said you knew a play, for instance, J. P. would say, "Good! Nowbegin at the second scene of the third act, where the curtain rises onthe two conspirators in the courtyard of the hotel; just carry it alongfrom there"—and if you didn't know it thoroughly you were soon indifficulties.

His method was nicely adjusted to his needs, for he was concerned mostof the time to get entertainment as well as information; and he was,therefore, amused by exposing your ignorance when he was not informed byuncovering your knowledge. Indeed, nothing put him in such good humor asto discover a cleft in your intellectual armor, provided that you reallypossessed some talent, faculty, or resource which was useful to him.

My dinner, considered as a dinner, was as great a failure as myconversation, considered as an exhibition of learning. I got no morethan a hasty mouthful now and again, and got that only through a deviceoften resorted to by the secretaries under such circ*mstances, but whichseldom met with much success.

J. P. himself had to eat, and from time to time the butler, who alwaysstood behind J. P.'s chair, and attended to him only, would takeadvantage of an instant's pause in the conversation to say, "Your fishis getting cold, sir."

This would divert J. P.'s attention from his victim long enough to allowone of the other men to break in with a remark designed to draw J. P.'sfire. It worked once in a while, but as a rule it had no effect whateverbeyond making J. P. hurry through the course so that he could renew hisattack at the point where he had suspended it.

On the particular occasion I am describing I was fortunate enough towardthe end of dinner to regain some of the ground I had lost in mydisorderly flight across the field of scholarship. One of thesecretaries seized an opportunity to refer to the British death duties.I had intended to arrange for the introduction of this topic, but hadforgotten to do so. It was just sheer good luck, and I made signs to thegentleman to keep it up. He did so, and the moment he ceased speaking Itook up the tale. It was a good subject, for J. P. was interested in thequestion of death duties.

After a preliminary flourish I began to reel off the figures I hadcommitted to memory the previous night. Before I had got very far Mr.Pulitzer cried.

"Stop! Are you reading those figures?"

"No," I replied. "I read them over last night in the Daily Telegraph."

"My God! Are you giving them from memory? Haven't you got a note of themin your hand? Hasn't he? Hasn't he? …" appealing to the table.

Reassured on this point he said, "Well, go on, go on. This interestsme."

As soon as I had finished he turned to Craven and said, "Go and get thatpaper, and find the article."

When Craven returned with it, he continued, "Now, Mr. Ireland, go overthose figures again; and you, Mr. Craven, check them off and see ifthey're correct. Now, play fair, no tricks!"

I had made two mistakes, which were reported as soon as they werespoken. At the end Mr. Pulitzer said:

"Well, you see, you hadn't got them right, after all. But that's not sobad. With a memory like that you might have known something by now ifyou'd only had the diligence to read."

My second score was made just at the end of dinner, or rather whendinner had been finished some time and J. P. was lingering at table overhis cigar. The question of humor came up, and someone remarked howcurious it was that one of the favorite amusem*nts of the Americanhumorist should be to make fun of the Englishman for his lack of humor—"Laugh, and all the world laughs with you, except the Englishman," andso on. The usual defenses were made—Hood, Thackeray, Gilbert,Calverley, etc.—and then Punch was referred to.

This gave me the chance of repeating, more or less accurately, aparagraph which appeared in Punch some years ago, and which I alwaysrecite when that delightful periodical is slandered in my hearing. Itran something after this fashion:

"One of our esteemed contemporaries is very much worked up in its mindabout Mr. Balfour's foreign policy, which it compares to that of thecamel, which, when pursued, buries its head in the sand. We quite agreewith our esteemed contemporary about Mr. Balfour's foreign policy, butwe fear it is getting its metaphors mixed. Surely it is not thinking ofthe camel which, when pursued, buries its head in the sand, but of theostrich which, when pursued, runs its eye through a needle."

It was a lucky hit. No one had heard it before, and our party broke upwith Mr. Pulitzer in high good humor.

So the days passed. I saw a great deal of Mr. Pulitzer and went throughmany agonizing hours of cross-examination; but gradually matters cameround to the point where we discussed the possibility of my becoming amember of his personal staff. He thought that there was some hope that,if he put me through a rigorous training, I might suit him, but beforeit could even be settled that such an attempt should be made many thingswould have to be cleared up.

In the first place, I would understand what extreme caution wasnecessary for him in making a selection. There was not only the questionof whether I could make myself useful to him, and the question ofwhether I could be trusted in a relationship of such a confidentialnature, there remained the very important question of whether I was afit person to associate with the lady members of his family, who spentsome portion of each year with him.

This matter was discussed very frankly, and was then shelved pending areference to a number of people in England and America at whose homes Ihad been a guest, and where the household included ladies.

At the end of a week the yacht was sent to Marseilles to coal inpreparation for a cruise, and I went to stay at an hotel near the villa.It was a change for the worse.

By the time the yacht returned I had had some opportunity of observingthe routine of life at the villa. After breakfast Mr. Pulitzer went fora drive, accompanied by one, or occasionally by two, of the secretaries.During this drive he received a rough summary of the morning's news, thepapers having been gone over and marked either the night before or whilehe was having his breakfast.

As he seldom let us know in advance which of us he would call upon forthe first presentation of the news, and as he was liable to change hismind at the last minute when he had named somebody the previous night,we had all of us to go through the papers with great care, so that wemight be prepared if we were called upon.

On returning from his drive Mr. Pulitzer would either sit in the libraryand dictate letters and cablegrams, or he would have the news gone overin detail, or, if the state of his health forbade the mental exertioninvolved in the intense concentration with which he absorbed what wasread to him from the papers, he would go for a ride, accompanied by agroom and by one of the secretaries. When he went to Europe he usuallysent over in advance some horses from his own stable, as he was veryfond of riding and could not trust himself on a strange horse.

After the ride, lunch, at which the conversation generally took a moreserious turn than at dinner, for at night Mr. Pulitzer disliked anydiscussion of matters which were likely to arouse his interest very muchor to stir his emotions, for he found it difficult to get his mindcalmed down so that he could sleep. Even in regard to lunch we weresometimes warned in advance, either by Dunningham or by the secretarywho had left him just before lunch was served, that Mr. Pulitzer wishedthe conversation to be light and uncontroversial.

Immediately after lunch Mr. Pulitzer retired to his bedroom with HerrFriederich Mann, the German secretary, and was read to, chiefly Germanplays, until he fell asleep, or until he had had an hour or so of rest.

By four o'clock he was ready to go out again, riding, if he had not hada ride in the morning, or driving, with an occasional walk for perhapshalf-an-hour, the automobile always remaining within call. As a rule hespent an hour before dinner listening to someone read, a novel, abiography, or what not, according to his mood.

At dinner the conversation usually ran along the lines of what was beingread to him by the various secretaries or of such topics in the day'snews as were of an unexciting nature. The meal varied greatly in length.If J. P. was feeling tired, or out of sorts, he eat his dinner quicklyand left us, taking somebody along to read to him until he was ready togo to bed. But, if he was in good form, and an interesting topic wasstarted, or if he was in a reminiscent mood and wanted to talk, dinnerwould last from half-past-seven to nine, or even later.

I shall deal in another place with the different phases of theconversation and reading which formed so large a part of our duties, butI may refer here to various incidents of our routine and to some thingsby which our routine was occasionally disturbed.

Mr. Pulitzer was very fond of walking. His usual practice was to leavethe villa in the automobile and drive either down to the plage atMentone or up the hill to a point about midway between Cap Martin andthe Tower of Augustus. When he reached the spot he had selected he tookthe arm of a secretary and promenaded backward and forward over adistance of five hundred yards, until he felt tired, when the automobilewas signaled and we drove home.

Each of his favorite spots for walking had its peculiar disadvantagesfor his companion. Speaking for myself I can say that I dreaded thesewalks more than any other of my duties.

If we went on the hillside I had to keep the most alert and unrelaxinglookout for automobiles. They came dashing round the sharp curves with aroar and a scream, and these distracting noises always made Mr. Pulitzerstop dead still as though he were rooted to the ground.

I understand that Mr. Pulitzer was never actually hit by an automobile,and, of course, his blindness saved him from the agony of apprehensionwhich his companion suffered, for he could not see the narrowness of hisescape. But I was out with him one day on the Upper Corniche road whentwo automobiles going in opposite directions at reckless speed came uponus at a sharp turn, and I may frankly confess that I was never sofrightened in my life. Had we been alone I am certain we would have beenkilled, but fortunately Mann was with us, and it was on his arm that J.P. was leaning at the critical moment. Mann, who had the advantage oflong experience, acted instantly with the utmost presence of mind. Hemade a quick sign to me to look out for myself, and then pushed Mr.Pulitzer almost off his feet up against the high cliff which rose abovethe inner edge of the road.

The machines were out of sight before we could realize that we weresafe. I expected an explosion from J. P. Nothing of the kind! He actedthen, as I always saw him act when there was any actual danger or realtrouble of any kind, with perfect calmness and self-possession.

The intolerable nervous strain of these walks on the hillside wasaccompanied by a mental strain almost as distressing. It would have beenbad enough if one's only responsibility had been to keep Mr. Pulitzerfrom being crushed against the hillside, or being run over; but this wasonly half the problem. The other half was to keep up a continual streamof conversation—not light, airy nothings, but a solid body of carefullyprepared facts—in a tone of voice which should fail to convey to J. P.the slightest indication of your nervousness.

When we walked on the plage at Mentone, the difficulties were of anotherkind. Here there was always more or less of a crowd, and as the pavedpromenade was narrow, and as very few people had the intelligence torealize that the tall, striking figure leaning on his companion's armwas that of a blind man, and as fewer still had the courtesy to stepaside if they did realize it, our walk was a constant dodging in and outamong curious gazers interested in staring at the gaunt, impressiveinvalid with the large black spectacles.

Conversation was, of course, extremely difficult under suchcirc*mstances; and occasionally things were made worse by some strangerstopping squarely in front of us and addressing Mr. Pulitzer by name,for he was a notable personage in the place and was well known by sight.

When accosted in this manner, Mr. Pulitzer always showed signs ofextreme nervousness. He would stamp his foot, raise the clenched fist ofhis disengaged arm menacingly, and cry, "My God! What's this? What'sthis? Tell him to go away. I won't tolerate this intrusion. Tell himI'll have him arrested."

More than once I had to push a man off the promenade and make faces athim embodying all that was possible by such means in the way of threatsto do him bodily injury. It was impossible to argue with these impudentintruders, because anything like an altercation on a public road wouldhave meant two or three days of misery for Mr. Pulitzer, in consequenceof the excitement and apprehension he would suffer in such an affair. Itwas always with a feeling of intense relief that I saw J. P. safely backat the villa after our walks.

Although Mr. Pulitzer's intellectual interests covered almost everyphase of human life, there was nothing from which he derived morepleasure than from music. Once, or perhaps twice a week, he motored overto Monte Carlo, or even as far as Nice, to attend a concert. On suchoccasions he always took at least two companions with him, so that henever sat next to a stranger.

He preferred a box for his party, but, failing that, the seats werealways secured on the broad cross-aisle, so that he would not have torise when anyone wished to pass in front of him. He liked to arrive afew minutes before the concert commenced, and one of us would read theprogram to him. He had an excellent memory for music, and his taste wasbroad enough to embrace almost everything good from Bach to Wagner. Hewas a keen critic of a performance, and in the intervals between thepieces he criticized the playing from the standpoint of his musicalexperience.

One movement was played too loud, another too fast; in one the brass haddrowned a delightful passage for the violas, which he had heard andadmired the year before in Vienna; in another the brasses had beensubdued to a point where the theme lost its distinction.

It was his habit to beat time with one hand and to sway his head gentlybackward and forward when he heard a slow, familiar melody. Whensomething very stirring was played, the Rakoczy March, for instance, orthe overture to Die Meistersinger, he would mark the down beat with hisclenched fist, and throw his head back as if he were going to shout.

I was tempted at first to believe that, in the concert room, when one ofhis favorite pieces was being played, and his hand rose and fell inexact accord with the conductor's baton, or when, with his head in theair and his mouth half open, he thumped his knee at the beginning ofeach bar, he was absorbed in the music to the exclusion of all hisworries, perplexities, and suffering.

But, after he had once or twice turned to me in a flash as the last noteof a symphony lingered before the outburst of applause and asked, "Didyou remember to tell Dunningham to have dinner served a quarter of anhour later this evening?" or "Did Thwaites say anything to you aboutwhen he expected those cables from New York?"—I learned that even atsuch times J. P. never lost the thread of his existence, never freedhimself from the slavery of his affairs.

Twice during the ten days immediately preceding our long promised cruisein the Mediterranean we made short trips on the yacht. We went to bedsome nights with all our plans apparently settled for a week ahead. Ateight o'clock the next morning Dunningham would bring J. P. down tobreakfast and then announce that everybody was to be on board the yachtby midday, as J. P. had slept badly and felt the need of sea air and thecomplete quiet which could be had only on board the Liberty.

There would be a great packing of trunks, not only those devoted to thepersonal belongings of the staff, but trunks for newspaper files,encyclopedias, magazines, novels, histories, correspondence, and so on.

The chef and his assistants, the butler and his assistants, the majordomo, and the secretaries would leave the villa in a string ofcarriages, followed by cartloads of baggage, and install themselves onthe yacht.

Or the cause of our sudden departure might be that Mr. Pulitzer wasfeeling nervous and out of sorts and was expecting important letters orcables which were sure to excite him and make him worse. On suchoccasions Dunningham, who was one of the few people who had anyinfluence whatever over Mr. Pulitzer, would urge an instant flight onthe yacht as the only means of safeguarding J. P.'s health. He knew thatif we stayed ashore no power on earth could prevent Mr. Pulitzer fromreading his cables and letters when they arrived. Once out at sea wewere completely cut off from communication with the shore, for we had nowireless apparatus, and Mr. Pulitzer would settle down and get somerest.

More than once, however, I saw all the preparations made for a shortcruise, everybody on board, the captain on the bridge, the table laidfor lunch, a man stationed at the stem to report the automobile as soonas it came in sight, and at the last moment a messenger arrivecountermanding everything and ordering everybody back to the villa asfast as they could go.

These sudden changes were sometimes reversed. We would arrive at Mentonein the morning. J. P. would announce his intention of spending a weekthere. With this apparently settled, J. P. goes ashore for a ride, theprocession makes its way to the villa, the trunks are unpacked, the chefbegins to ply his art, the captain of the yacht goes ahead with suchwashing down and painting as are needed, the chief engineer seizes thechance of making some small engine-room repairs—no ordinary ship's workof any kind was allowed when J. P. was on board, the slightest noise orthe faintest odor of paint being strictly forbidden—and later in theday the news comes that Mr. Pulitzer will be aboard again in two hoursand will expect everything to be ready to make an immediate start.

These short cruises might last only for a night, or they might extend toa day or two, Our custom was to steam straight out to sea and thenpatrol the coast backward and forward between Bordighera and Cannes,without losing sight of land.

The life at Cap Martin was sufficiently arduous, even for those who hadafter long experience with J. P. learned to get through the day withsome economy of effort. To me, new to the work, constantly under thedouble pressure of Mr. Pulitzer's cross-examinations and of the task ofsupplying, however inefficiently, the place of a secretary who was awayon sick leave, the whole thing was a nightmare. I was in a dazedcondition; everything impressed itself upon me with the vividness of adream, and eluded my attempts at analysis, just as the delusive order ofour sleeping visions breaks up into topsyturvydom as soon as we try toreconstruct it in the light of day.

I spent in all about a month at Cap Martin, staying sometimes on theyacht and sometimes at an hotel, and during that time I workedpractically every day from eight in the morning until ten or eleven atnight. I use the word "work" to include the hours spent with Mr.Pulitzer as well as those devoted to preparing material for him. Indeed,the time given to meals and to drives and walks with J. P. was much moreexhausting than that spent in reading and in making notes.

The only recreation I had during this period was one day on leave atNice and half a day at Monaco; but there was very little enjoyment to begot out of these visits, because I was under orders to bring back minutedescriptions of Nice and of the Institute of Marine Biology at Monaco.

Engaged on such missions, the passers-by, the houses, the shops, thefishes and marine vegetables in their tanks, the blue sky overhead, theblue sea at my feet assumed a new aspect to me. They were no longerparts of my own observation, to be remembered or forgotten as chancedetermined, they belonged to some one else, to the blind man in whoseservice I was pledged to a vicarious absorption of "material."

I found myself counting the black spots on a fish's back, the stepsleading up to Monaco on its hill, the number of men and women in theGrand Salon at Monte Carlo, of men with mustaches, of clean-shaven men,of men with beards in the restaurants, of vessels in sight from theterrace, of everything, in fact, which seemed capable of furnishing asentence or of starting up a discussion.

Once or twice I ran over late at night to Monte Carlo, and occasionallyThwaites and I met after ten o'clock at the Casino of Mentone to playbowls or try our luck at the tables; but the spirit of J. P. neverfailed to attend upon these dismal efforts at amusem*nt. If I heard anepigram, witnessed an interesting incident, or observed any curioussight, out came my note book and pencil and the matter was dedicated tothe service of the morrow's duties.

Finally, after several false starts, we all found ourselves on the yachtwith the prospect of spending most of our time aboard until Mr. Pulitzersailed for his annual visit to America.

CHAPTER IV

YACHTING IN THE MEDITERRANEAN

Taken at its face value a month in the Mediterranean, on board one ofthe finest yachts afloat, with visits to Corsica, Elba, Nice, Cannes,Naples, Genoa, Syracuse, and the Pirams, should give promise of apicturesque and entertaining record of sight-seeing, the kind of journalin which the views of Baedeker and of your local cab driver are blended,in order that the aroma of foreign travel may be wafted to the nostrilsof your fresh-water cousins.

What my narrative lacks of this flavor of luxurious vagrancy must besupplied by the peculiar interest of a cruise which violated everytradition of the annals of yachting, and created precedents which in allhuman probability will never be followed so long as iron floats onwater.

It was part of Mr. Pulitzer's scheme of nautical life to shroud all hismovements in mystery. One result of this was that when we were on theyacht we never knew where we were going until we got there. The compass-course at any moment betrayed nothing of Mr. Pulitzer's intentions, forwe might turn in at night with the ship heading straight for Naples andwake up in the morning to find ourselves three miles south of the Genoalighthouse.

Apart from Mr. Pulitzer's fancy, our erratic maneuvers were affected byour need to make good weather out of whatever wind we encountered, onthe one hand because J. P., though an excellent sailor, disliked therolling produced by a beam sea, since it interfered with his walking ondeck, and on the other hand, because several of the secretaries sufferedfrom sea-sickness the moment we were off an even keel.

Mr. Pulitzer was not a man prone to be placated by excuses; but he hadcome to realize that neither a sense of duty nor the hope of reward,neither fear nor courage, can make an agreeable companion out of a manwho is seasick. So, unless there was an important reason why we shouldreach port, we always made a head-wind of anything stronger than a lightbreeze, and followed the weather round the compass until it was fair forour destination.

As soon as we left Mentone Mr. Pulitzer began the process of educationwhich was designed to fit me for his service.

"When you were in New York," he asked, "what papers did you read?"

"The Sun and The Times in the morning and The Evening Sun and The
Evening Post at night," I replied.

"My God! Didn't you read The World?"

"Nothing but the editorial page."

"Why not? What's the matter with it?"

I explained that I was not interested in crime and disaster, to which
The World devoted so much space, that I wanted more foreign news than
The World found room for, and that I was offended by the big headlines,
which compelled me to know things I didn't want to know.

"Go on," he said; "your views are not of any importance, but they'reentertaining."

"Well," I continued, "I think The World was excellently described a fewyears ago in Life. There was a poem entitled, 'New York NewspaperDirectory, Revised,' in which a verse was devoted to each of the big NewYork papers. I believe I can remember the one about The World, if youcare to hear it, for I cut the poem out and have kept it among myclippings."

"Certainly, go ahead."

I recited:

"A dual personality is this,
Part yellow dog, part patriot and sage;
When't comes to facts the rule is hit or miss,
While none can beat its editorial page.
Wise counsel here, wild yarns the other side,
Page six its Jekyll and page one its Hyde;
At the same time conservative and rash,
The World supplies us good advice and trash."

"That's clever," said Mr. Pulitzer, "but it's absolute nonsense, exceptabout the editorial page. Have you got the clipping with you? I wouldlike to hear what that smart young man has got to say about the otherpapers."

I went to my cabin, got the poem, and read the whole of it to him—witty
characterizations of The Evening Post, The Sun, The Journal, The
Tribune, The Times and The Herald. As soon as I had finished reading,
Mr. Pulitzer said:

"The man who wrote those verses had his prejudices, but he was clever.I'm glad you read them to me; always read me anything of that kind,anything that is bright and satirical. Now, I'm going to give you alecture about newspapers, because I want you to understand my point ofview. It does not matter whether you agree with it or not, but you havegot to understand it if you are going to be of any use to me. But beforeI begin, you tell me what YOUR ideas are about running a newspaper forAmerican readers."

I pleaded that I had never given the matter much thought, and that I hadlittle to guide me, except my own preferences and the memory of anoccasional discussion here and there at a club or in the smoking room ofa Pullman. He insisted, however, and so I launched forth upon adiscourse in regard to the functions, duties and responsibilities of anAmerican newspaper, as I imagined they would appear to the averageAmerican reader.

The chief duty of a managing editor, I said, was to give his readers aninteresting paper, and as an angler baits his hook, not with what HElikes, but with what the fish like, so the style of the newspaper shouldbe adjusted to what the managing editor judged to be the publicappetite.

A sub-stratum of truth should run through the news columns; but since amillion-dollar fire is more exciting than a half-million-dollar fire,since a thousand deaths in an earthquake are more exciting than ahundred, no nice scrupulosity need be observed in checking the insuranceinspector's figures or in counting the dead. What the public wanted wasa good "story," and provided it got that there would be littledisposition in any quarter to censure an arithmetical generosity whichhad been invoked in the service of the public's well-known demands.

So far as politics were concerned, it seemed to me that any newspapercould afford the strongest support to its views while printing the truthand nothing but the truth, if it exercised some discretion as toprinting the WHOLE truth. The editorial, I added, might be regarded as ahabit rather than as a guiding force. People no longer looked to theeditorial columns for the formation of their opinions. They formed theirjudgment from a large stock of facts, near-facts and nowhere near-facts,and then bought a paper for the purpose of comfortable reassurance. Ihad no doubt that a newspaper run to suit my own taste—a combination ofThe World's editorial page with The Evening Post's news and make-up—would lack the influence with which circulation alone can endow a paper,and would end in a bankruptcy highly creditable to its stockholders.

This somewhat cynical outburst brought down upon me an overwhelmingtorrent of protest from Mr. Pulitzer.

"My God!" he cried, "I would not have believed it possible that any onecould show such a complete ignorance of American character, of the highsense of duty which in the main animates American journalism, of thefoundations of integrity on which almost every successful paper in theUnited States has been founded. You do not know what it costs me to tryand keep The World up to a high standard of accuracy—the money, thetime, the thought, the praise, the blame, the constant watchfulness.

"I do not say that The World never makes a mistake in its news column; Iwish I could say it. What I say is that there are not half a dozenpapers in the United States which tamper with the news, which publishwhat they know to be false. But if I thought that I had done no betterthan that I would be ashamed to own a paper. It is not enough to refrainfrom publishing fake news, it is not enough to take ordinary care toavoid the mistakes which arise from the ignorance, the carelessness, thestupidity of one or more of the many men who handle the news before itgets into print; you have got to do much more than that; you have got tomake every one connected with the paper—your editors, your reporters,your correspondents, your rewrite men, your proof-readers—believe thataccuracy is to a newspaper what virtue is to a woman.

"When you go to New York ask any of the men in the dome to show you myinstructions to them, my letters written from day to day, my cables; andyou will see that accuracy, accuracy, accuracy, is the first, the mosturgent, the most constant demand I have made on them.

"I do not say that The World is the only paper which takes extraordinarypains to be accurate; on the contrary, I think that almost every paperin America tries to be accurate. I will go further than that. There isnot a paper of any importance published in French, German or English,whether it is printed in Europe or in America, which I have not studiedfor weeks or months, and some of them I have read steadily for a quarterof a century; and I tell you this, Mr. Ireland, after years ofexperience, after having comparisons made by the hundred, from time totime, of different versions of the same event, that the press of Americaas a whole has a higher standard of accuracy than the European press asa whole. I will go further than that. I will say that line for line theAmerican newspapers actually ATTAIN a higher standard of news accuracythan the European newspapers; and I will go further than that and saythat although there are in Europe a few newspapers, and they are chieflyEnglish, which are as accurate as the best newspapers in America, thereare no newspapers in America which are so habitually, so criminallystuffed with fake news as the worst of the European papers."

Mr. Pulitzer paused and asked me if there was a glass of water on thetable—we were seated in his library—and after I had handed it to himand he had drained it nearly to the bottom at one gulp, he resumed hislecture. I give it in considerable detail, because it was the longestspeech he ever addressed to me, because he subsequently made me write itout from memory and then read it to him, and because it was one of thefew occasions during my intercourse with him on which I was persuadedbeyond a doubt that he spoke with perfect frankness, without allowinghis words to be influenced by any outside considerations.

"As a matter of fact," he continued, "the criticisms you hear about theAmerican press are founded on a dislike for our headlines and for theprominence we give to crime, to corruption in office, and to sensationaltopics generally; the charge of inaccuracy is just thrown in to make itlook worse. I do not believe that one person in a thousand who attacksthe American press for being inaccurate has ever taken the trouble toinvestigate the facts.

"Now about this matter of sensationalism: a newspaper should bescrupulously accurate, it should be clean, it should avoid everythingsalacious or suggestive, everything that could offend good taste orlower the moral tone of its readers; but within these limits it is theduty of a newspaper to print the news. When I speak of good taste and ofgood moral tone I do not mean the kind of good taste which is offendedby every reference to the unpleasant things of life, I do not mean thekind of morality which refuses to recognize the existence of immorality--that type of moral hypocrite has done more to check the moral progressof humanity than all the immoral people put together—what I mean is thekind of good taste which demands that frankness should be linked withdecency, the kind of moral tone which is braced and not relaxed when itis brought face to face with vice.

"Some people try and make you believe that a newspaper should not devoteits space to long and dramatic accounts of murders, railroad wrecks,fires, lynchings, political corruption, embezzlements, frauds, graft,divorces, what you will. I tell you they are wrong, and I believe thatif they thought the thing out they would see that they are wrong.

"We are a democracy, and there is only one way to get a democracy on itsfeet in the matter of its individual, its social, its municipal, itsState, its National conduct, and that is by keeping the public informedabout what is going on. There is not a crime, there is not a dodge,there is not a trick, there is not a swindle, there is not a vice whichdoes not live by secrecy. Get these things out in the open, describethem, attack them, ridicule them in the press, and sooner or laterpublic opinion will sweep them away.

"Publicity may not be the only thing that is needed, but it is the onething without which all other agencies will fail. If a newspaper is tobe of real service to the public it must have a big circulation, firstbecause its news and its comment must reach the largest possible numberof people, second, because circulation means advertising, andadvertising means money, and money means independence. If I caught anyman on The World suppressing news because one of our advertisersobjected to having it printed I would dismiss him immediately; Iwouldn't care who he was.

"What a newspaper needs in its news, in its headlines, and on itseditorial page is terseness, humor, descriptive power, satire,originality, good literary style, clever condensation, and accuracy,accuracy, accuracy!"

Mr. Pulitzer made this confession of faith with the warmth generated byan unshakable faith. He spoke, as he always spoke when he was excited,with vigor, emphasis and ample gesture. When he came to an end and askedfor another glass of water I found nothing to say. It would have been asimpertinent of me to agree with him as to differ from him.

After all, I had to remember that he had taken over The World when itscirculation was less than 15,000 copies a day; that he had been forthirty years and still was its dominating spirit and the final authorityon every matter concerning its policy, its style, and its contents; thathe had seen its morning circulation go up to well over 350,000 copies aday; that at times he had taken his stand boldly against popular clamor,as when he kept up for months a bitter attack against the Americanaction in the Venezuelan boundary dispute, and at times had incurred thehostility of powerful moneyed interests, as when he forced the Clevelandadministration to sell to the public on competitive bids a fifty-million-dollar bond issue which it had arranged to sell privately to agreat banking house at much less than its market value.

Before leaving the subject of newspapers I may describe the method bywhich Mr. Pulitzer kept in touch with the news and put himself in theposition to maintain a critical supervision over The World.

An elaborate organization was employed for this purpose. I will explainit as it worked when we were on the yacht, but the system was maintainedat all times, whether we were cruising, or were at Cap Martin, at BarHarbor, at Wiesbaden, or elsewhere, merely a few minor details beingchanged to meet local conditions.

In the Pulitzer Building, Park Row, New York, there were collected eachday several copies of each of the morning papers, including The World,and some of the evening papers. These were mailed daily to Mr. Pulitzeraccording to cabled instructions as to our whereabouts. In addition tothis a gentleman connected with The World, who had long experience ofMr. Pulitzer's requirements, cut from all the New York papers and from anumber of other papers from every part of the United States everyarticle that he considered Mr. Pulitzer ought to see, whether because ofits subject, its tenor, or its style. These clippings were mailed by thehundred on almost every fast steamer sailing for Europe. In order thatthere might be the greatest economy of time in reading them, theessential matter in each clipping was marked.

So far as The World was concerned a copy of each issue was sent, withthe names of the writers written across each editorial, big news story,or special article.

As we went from port to port we got the principal French, German,Austrian and Italian papers, and The World bureau in London kept ussupplied with the English dailies and weeklies.

Whenever we picked up a batch of American papers, each of thesecretaries got a set and immediately began to read it. My own method ofreading was adopted after much advice from Mr. Pulitzer and afterconsultation with the more experienced members of the staff, and I donot suppose it differed materially from that followed by the others.

I read The World first, going over the "big" stories carefully and withenough concentration to give me a very fair idea of the facts. Then Iread the articles in the other papers covering the same ground, notingany important differences in the various accounts. This task resolveditself in practice into mastering in considerable detail about half adozen articles—a political situation, a murder, a railroad wreck, afire, a strike, an important address by a college president, forexample—and getting a clear impression of the treatment of each item ineach paper.

With this done, and with a few notes scribbled on a card to help mymemory, I turned to the editorial pages, reading each editorial with theclosest attention, and making more notes.

The final reading of the news served to give me from ten to twenty smalltopics of what Mr. Pulitzer called "human interest," to be used assubjects of conversation as occasion demanded. As a rule, I cut theseitems out of the paper and put them in the left-hand pocket of my coat,for when we walked together J. P. always took my right arm, and my lefthand was therefore free to dip into my reservoir of cuttings wheneverconversation flagged and I needed a new subject.

The cuttings covered every imaginable topic—small cases in themagistrates' courts, eccentric entertainments at Newport, the deaths ofcentenarians, dinners to visiting authors in New York, accounts ofperforming animals, infant prodigies, new inventions, additions to theMetropolitan Museum, announcements of new plays, anecdotes aboutprominent men and women, instances of foolish extravagance among therich, and so on.

Something of the kind was done by each of us, so that when Mr. Pulitzerappeared on deck after breakfast we all had something ready for him. Thefirst man called usually had the easiest time, for Mr. Pulitzer's mindwas fresh and keen for news after a night's rest. The men who went tohim later in the morning suffered from two disadvantages, one that theydid not know what news or how much of it J. P. had already received, theother that as the day advanced Mr. Pulitzer often grew tired, and hisattention then became difficult to hold.

I remember that on one occasion when he had complained of feelingutterly tired out mentally I asked him if he would like me to stoptalking. "No, no," he replied at once; "never stop talking or reading, Imust have something to occupy my mind all the time, however exhausted Iam."

This peculiarity of being unable to get any repose by the road of silentabstraction must have been a source of acute suffering to him. It isdifficult to imagine a more terrible condition of mind than that inwhich the constant flogging of a tired brain is the only anodyne for itsmorbid irritability.

My own experience of a morning on the yacht, when Mr. Pulitzer's nerveshad been soothed by a good night's sleep, was that he walked up and downthe long promenade deck and got from me a brief summary of the news.

From time to time he pulled out his watch and, holding it toward me,asked what o'clock it was. He was always most particular to know exactlyhow long he had walked. We had arguments on many occasions as to theexact moment at which we had commenced our promenade, and we would gocarefully over the facts—Mr. Craven had been walking with him from 9.30to 10.05, then Dunningham had been in the library with him for fifteenminutes, then Mr. Thwaites had walked with him for ten minutes, takingnotes for a letter to be written to the managing editor of The World;well, that made it 10.30 when I joined him; but fifteen minutes had tobe taken out of the hour for the time he'd spent in the library, thatmade three-quarters of an hour he'd been actually walking, well, we'dwalk for another fifteen minutes and round out the hour.

Often when the appointed moment came to stop walking Mr. Pulitzer feltable to go on, and he would then either say frankly, "Let's have fifteenminutes more," or he would achieve the same end by reopening thediscussion as to just how long he had walked, and keep on walking untilhe began to feel tired, when he would say: "I dare say you are quiteright, well, now we will sit down and go over the papers."

The question of where Mr. Pulitzer was to sit on deck was not a simpleone to decide. He always wanted as much air as he could get; but as hesuffered a good deal of pain in his right eye, the one which had beenoperated on, and as this was either started or made worse by exposure towind, a spot had to be found which had just the right amount of aircurrent. Five minutes might show, however, that there was a little toomuch wind, when we would move to a more sheltered spot, or he mightthink we'd been too cautious and that he could sit in a breezier spot,or, after we had found the ideal place, the wind might change, and thenwe had to move again.

Settled in a large cane armchair with a leather seat, a heavy rug overhis knees if the weather was at all chilly, Mr. Pulitzer took up theserious consideration of the news which had been lightly skimmed overduring his walk.

An item was selected, and the account in The World was read aloud. Thenfollowed the discussion of it from the standpoint of its presentation inthe various papers. On what page was it printed in The World, in whatcolumn, how much space did it fill, how much was devoted to headlines,what was the size of the type, was the type varied in parts to giveemphasis to the more striking features of the story, what were thecross-heads in the body of the article, were any boxes used, if so, whatwas put in them, what about the illustrations? And so on for eachimportant item in each paper.

One of the by-products of this reading of the papers was a stream ofcables, letters and memoranda to various members of The World staff inNew York. None of these were ever sent through me, but it was a commonthing for J. P. to say: "Have you got your writing pad with you? Justmake a note: Indianapolis story excellent, insufficient detailslynching, who wrote City Hall story? and give it to Thwaites and tellhim to remind me of it this afternoon."

Mr. Pulitzer would take the matter up with Thwaites, and would send suchpraise, blame, reward, criticism, or suggestion as the occasiondemanded.

From time to time I was called upon to make a report on the day'spapers, a task which usually fell to some more experienced member of thestaff. My reports always covered the Sunday issues. They included ananalysis of The Sun, The Herald, The American, The Times, The Tribuneand The World, showing the number of columns of advertising, of news,and of special articles, a classification of the telegrams according togeographical distribution—how much from France, from Germany, fromEngland, from the Western States, from the Southern States, and so on; aclassification of the special articles on the basis of their topics—medicine, sport, fashions, humor, adventure, children's interests,women's interests.

This was by no means the only check which Mr. Pulitzer kept upon TheWorld and its contemporaries. He received regularly from New York astatistical return showing, for The World and its two principalcompetitors, the monthly and yearly figures for circulation andadvertising; and the advertising return showed not only the amount ofspace occupied by advertising in each paper, but also the number ofadvertisem*nts each month under various heads, such as displayadvertising, want ads., real estate, dry goods, amusem*nts, hotels,transportation, to let ads., summer resorts, and whatever other classesof advertising might appear.

Whatever Mr. Pulitzer wished to do in the way of business, whether itconcerned the direction of the policy of The World, or the dictating ofan editorial, or the handling of correspondence, was almost always donein the morning, and by lunch time he was ready to turn his attention tosomething light or amusing, or to serious subjects not connected withcurrent events.

Mr. Pulitzer generally lunched and dined with the staff in the diningsaloon, unless he felt more than usually ill or nervous, when he had hismeals served in the library, one or at most two of us keeping himcompany.

When he sat with us he occupied the head of the table. At his side stoodthe butler, who never attended to any one but his master. A stranger atthe table, if he were not actually sitting next to J. P., might verywell have failed to notice that his host was blind, so far as anyindication of blindness was afforded by the way he ate. His food was, ofcourse, cut up at a side table, but it was placed before him on anordinary plate, without any raised edge or other device to save it frombeing pushed on to the tablecloth.

As soon as he was seated J. P. put his fingers lightly on the table infront of him and fixed the exact position of his plate, fork, spoon,water glass and wine glass. While he was doing this he generally spoke afew words to one or another of us, and as he always turned his face inthe direction of the person he was addressing, the delicate movements ofhis hands, even if they were observed, were only those of a man with hissight under similar circ*mstances.

Sitting next to him, however, his blindness soon became apparent. As hebegan to eat he simply impaled each portion of food on his fork, butafter he had got halfway through a course and the remaining morsels werescattered here and there on his plate, he explored the surface with theutmost niceness of touch until he felt a slight resistance. He had thenlocated a morsel, but in order that he might avoid an accident intransferring it to his mouth he felt the object carefully all over withalmost imperceptible touches of his fork, and, having found the thickestor firmest part of it secured it safely.

At times, if he became particularly interested in the conversation, heput his fork down, and when he picked it up again he was in difficultiesfor a moment or two, having lost track of the food remaining on hisplate. On these occasions the ever-watchful butler would either placethe food with a fork in the track of J. P.'s systematic exploration, orguide Mr. Pulitzer's hand to the right spot.

Like many people in broken health Mr. Pulitzer had a very variableappetite. Sometimes nothing could tempt his palate, sometimes he atevoraciously; but at all times the greatest care had to be exercised inregard to his diet. Not only did he suffer constantly from acutedyspepsia, but also from diabetes, which varied in sympathy with hisgeneral state of health.

He took very little alcohol, and that only in the form of light wines,such as claret or hock, seldom more than a single small glass at lunchand at dinner. Whenever he found a vintage which specially appealed tohim he would tell the butler to send a case or two to some old friend inAmerica, to some member of his family or to one of the staff of TheWorld.

After lunch Mr. Pulitzer always retired to his cabin for a siesta. I usethe word siesta, but as a matter of fact it is quite inadequate todescribe the peculiar function for which I have chosen it as a label.What took place on these occasions was this: Mr. Pulitzer lay down onhis bed, sometimes in pyjamas, but more often with only his coat andboots removed, and one of the secretaries, usually the German secretary,sat down in an armchair at the bedside with a pile of books at hiselbow.

At a word from Mr. Pulitzer the secretary began to read in a clear,incisive voice some historical work, novel or play. After a few minutesMr. Pulitzer would say "Softly," and the secretary's voice was lowereduntil, though it was still audible, it assumed a monotonous and soothingquality. After a while the order came, "Quite softly." At this point thereader ceased to form his words and commenced to murmur indistinctly,giving an effect such as might be produced by a person reading aloud inan adjoining room, but with the connecting door closed.

If, after ten minutes of this murmuring, J. P. remained motionless itwas to be assumed that he was asleep; and the secretary's duty was to goon murmuring until Mr. Pulitzer awoke and told him to stop or tocommence actual reading again. This murmuring might last for two hours,and it was a very difficult art to acquire, for at the slightest changein the pitch of the voice, at a sneeze, or a cough, Mr. Pulitzer wouldwake with a start, and an unpleasant quarter of an hour followed.

This murmuring was not, however, without its consolations to themurmurer, for as soon as the actual reading stopped he could take up anovel or magazine and, leaving his vocal organs to carry on the work,concentrate his mind upon the preparation of material against somefuture session.

The siesta over, the afternoon was taken up with much the same kind ofwork as had filled the morning. By six o'clock Mr. Pulitzer was ready tosit in the library for an hour before he dressed for dinner. This timewas generally devoted to novels, plays and light literature of variouskinds. J. P. often assured me that no man had ever been able to read anovel or a play to him satisfactorily without having first gone over itcarefully at least twice; and on more than one occasion I was furnishedwith very good evidence that even this double preparation was not alwaysa guarantee of success.

There appeared to be two ways of getting Mr. Pulitzer interested in anovel or play. One, and this, I believe, was the most successful, was todraw a striking picture of the scene where the climax is reached—thewife crouching in the corner, the husband revolver in hand, the TertiumQuid calmly offering to read the documents which prove that he and notthe gentleman with the revolver is really the husband of the lady—andthen to go back to the beginning and explain how it all came about.

The other method was to set forth the appearance and disposition of eachof the characters in the story, so that they assumed reality in Mr.Pulitzer's mind, then to condense the narrative up to about page twohundred and sixty, and then begin to read from the book. If in thecourse of the next three minutes you were not asked in a tone of utterweariness, "My God! Is there much more of this?" there was a reasonablechance that you might be allowed to read from the print a fifth orpossibly a fourth of what you had not summarized.

Dinner on the yacht passed in much the same way as lunch, except thatserious subjects and especially politics were taboo.

The meal hours were really the most trying experiences of the day. Eachof us went to the table with several topics of conversation carefullyprepared, with our pockets full of newspaper cuttings, notes and evensmall reference books for dates and biographies.

But there was seldom any conversation in the proper sense; that is tosay, we were hardly ever able to start a subject going and pass it fromone to the other with a running comment or amplification, partly becauseany expression of opinion, except when he, J. P., asked for it, usuallybored him to extinction, and partly because the first statement of anystriking fact generally inspired Mr. Pulitzer to undertake a searchingcross-examination of the speaker into every detail of the matter broughtforward, and in regard to every ramification of the subject.

I may relate an amusing instance of this: A gentleman who had been onthe staff, but had been absent through illness, joined us at Mentone fora cruise in the Eastern Mediterranean. At dinner the first night out heincautiously mentioned that during the two months of his convalescencehe had taken the opportunity of reading the whole of Shakespeare'splays.

Too late he realized his mistake. Mr. Pulitzer took the matter up, andfor the next hour and a half we listened to the unfortunate ex-invalidwhile he gave a list of the principal characters in each of thehistorical plays, in each of the tragedies, and in each of the comedies,followed by an outline of each plot, a description of a scene here andthere, and an occasional quotation from the text.

At the end of this heroic exploit, which was helped out now and then bya note from one of the rest of us, scribbled hastily on a card andhanded silently to the victim, Mr. Pulitzer merely said, "Well, go on,go on, didn't you read the sonnets?" But this was too much for ourgravity, and in a ripple of laughter the sitting was brought to a close.

The trouble with the meals, however, was not only that we were all keptat a very high strain of alertness and attention, singularly inconduciveto the enjoyment of food or to the sober business of digestion, but thatthey were of such interminable length. The plain fact was that byutilizing almost every moment between eight o'clock in the morning andnine o'clock at night we could fortify ourselves with enough material tofill in the hour or two spent with Mr. Pulitzer, hours during which wehad to supply an incessant stream of information, or run through acarefully condensed novel or play.

Under such circ*mstances an hour for lunch or dinner had to be acceptedas an unfortunate necessity; but when it came, as it often did, to anhour and a half or two hours, the encroachment on our time became aserious matter.

At about nine o'clock Mr. Pulitzer went to the library. One of thesecretaries accompanied him and read aloud until, on the stroke of ten,Dunningham came and announced that it was bedtime.

An extraordinary, and in some respects a most annoying feature of thisfinal task of the day, viewed from the secretary's standpoint, was thatfrom nine to ten, almost without cessation, Mr. Mann, the Germansecretary, played the piano in the dining saloon, the doorscommunicating with the library being left open.

In a direct line the piano cannot have been more than ten feet from thereader's chair; and the strain of reading aloud for an hour against apowerful rendering of the most vigorous compositions of Liszt, Wagner,Beethoven, Brahms and Chopin was a most trying ordeal for voice, brainand nerves. Mr. Pulitzer could apparently enjoy the music and thereading at the same time. Often, when something was played of which heknew the air, he would follow the notes by means of a sort of subduedwhistle, beating time with his hand; but this did not take his mind offthe reading, and if you allowed your attention to wander for a momentand failed to read with proper emphasis he would say: "Please read thatlast passage over again, and do try and read it distinctly."

Such was the routine of life on the yacht. It was little affected by ouroccasional visits to Naples, Ajaccio and other ports. Some one alwayslanded to inquire for mail and to procure newspapers, one or two of usgot shore leave for a few hours, but so far as I was concerned, beingstill in strict training and under close observation, my rare landingswere made only for the purpose of having my observation and memorytested.

I brought back minute descriptions of Napoleon's birthplace at Ajaccio,
of his villa in Elba, of the tapestries, pictures and statues in the
National Museum at Naples, of the Acropolis, of the monument of
Lysicrates, of the Greek Theater and of the Roman Amphitheater at
Syracuse, and of whatever else I was directed to observe.

Mr. Pulitzer had had these things described to him a score of times. Heknew which block of seats in the Greek theater at Neapolis bore theinscription of Nereis, daughter-in-law of King Heiro the Second; he knewup what stairs and through what rooms and passages you had to go to seethe marble bath in Napoleon's villa near Portoferraio; he knew fromprecisely what part of the Acropolis the yacht was visible when it wasat anchor at the Piraeus; he knew the actual place of the more importantpictures on the walls of each room of the Naples Museum—such a one tothe right, such a one to the left as you entered—he knew practicallyeverything, but specially he knew the thing you had forgotten.

My exhibitions of memory always ended, as they were no doubt intended toend, in a confession of ignorance. If I described five pictures, Mr.Pulitzer said: "Go on"; when I had described ten, he said: "Go on"; whenI had described fifteen he said: "Go on"; and this was kept up until Icould go on no more. At this point Mr. Pulitzer had discovered just whathe wanted to know—how much I could see in a given time, and how much ofit I could remember with a fair degree of accuracy. It was simply thegame of the jewels which Lurgan Sahib played with Kim, against adifferent background but with much the same object.

In the foregoing description of Mr. Pulitzer's daily life it has beenmade abundantly clear that his secretaries were worked to the limit oftheir endurance. It remains to add that Mr. Pulitzer never made a demandupon us which was greater than the demand he made upon himself.

He was a tremendous worker; and in receiving our reports no vital factever escaped him. If we missed one he immediately "sensed" it, and hisuntiring cross-examination clung to the trail until he unearthed it.

We had youth, health and numbers on our side, yet this man, aged bysuffering, tormented by ill-health, loaded with responsibility, keptpace with our united labors, and in the final analysis gave more than hereceived.

We brought a thousand offerings to his judgment; many of them herejected with an impatient cry of "Next! Next! For God's sake!" But ifany subject, whether from its intrinsic importance or from its style,reached the standard of his discrimination he took it up, enlarged uponit, illuminated it, until what had come to him as crude material forconversation assumed a new form, everything unessential rejected,everything essential disclosed in the clear and vigorous English whichwas the vehicle of his lucid thought.

When I recall the capaciousness of his understanding, the breadth of hisexperience, the range of his information, and set them side by side withthe cruel limitations imposed upon him by his blindness and by hisshattered constitution, I forget the severity of his discipline, Imarvel only that his self-control should have served him so well in thetedious business of breaking a new man to his service.

CHAPTER V

GETTING TO KNOW MR. PULITZER

As time passed, my relations with Mr. Pulitzer became more agreeable. Hehad given me fair warning that the first few weeks of my trial would bemore or less unpleasant; a month at Cap Martin and a month on the yachthad amply verified his prediction.

But this period of probation, laborious and nerve-racking as it was,enabled me to appreciate how important it was for J. P. to put to asevere test of ability, tact and good temper any one whom he intended toattach to his personal staff.

His total blindness placed him completely in the hands of those aroundhim, and, in order that he might enjoy that sense of perfect securitywithout which his life would have been intolerable, it was necessarythat he should be able to repose absolute confidence in the loyalty andintelligence of his companions.

It was not with reference to his blindness alone that the qualificationsof his secretaries were measured. Indeed, to the loss of his sight hehad become, in some measure, reconciled; what really dominated everyother consideration was the need of being able to meet the peculiarconditions which had arisen through the complete breakdown of hisnervous system.

I have spoken of his extreme sensitiveness to noise. It is impossible togive any description of this terrible symptom which shall be in any wayadequate. Many of us suffer torment through the hideous clamor whichappears to be inseparable from modern civilization; but to Mr. Pulitzereven the sudden click of a spoon against a saucer, the gurgle of waterpoured into a glass, the striking of a match, produced a spasm ofsuffering. I have seen him turn pale, tremble, break into a coldperspiration at some sound which to most people would have been scarcelyaudible.

When we were on the yacht every one was compelled to wear rubber-soledshoes. When Mr. Pulitzer was asleep that portion of the deck which wasover his bedroom was roped off so that no one could walk over his head;and each door which gave access to the rooms above his cabin wasprovided with a brass plate on which was cut the legend: "This door mustnot be opened when Mr. Pulitzer is asleep."

With every resource at his command which ingenuity could suggest andmoney procure, the one great unsolved problem of his later years was toobtain absolute quietness at all times. At his magnificent house in NewYork, at his beautiful country home at Bar Harbor he had spent tens ofthousands of dollars in a vain effort to procure the one luxury which heprized above all others. On the yacht the conditions in this respectwere as nearly perfect as possible; but some noise was inseparable fromthe ship's work—letting go the anchor, heaving it up again, blowing thefoghorn, and so on—though most of the ordinary noises had beeneliminated.

As an instance of the constant care which was taken to save Mr. Pulitzerfrom noise I remember that for some days almonds were served with ourdessert at dinner, but that they suddenly ceased to form part of ourmenu. Being fond of almonds, I asked the chief steward why they hadstopped serving them. After a little hesitation he said that it had beendone at the suggestion of the butler, who had noticed that I broke thealmonds in half before I ate them and that the noise made by theirsnapping was very disagreeable to Mr. Pulitzer.

With the best intentions in the world, our meals were now and thendisturbed by noise. A knife suddenly slipped with a loud click against aplate, a waiter dropped a spoon on a silver tray, or some one knockedover a glass. We were all in such a state of nervous tension thatwhenever one of these little accidents occurred we jumped in our chairsas though a pistol had been fired, and looked at J. P. with horrifiedexpectancy.

There could be no doubt whatever as to the effect these noises had uponhim. He winced as a dog winces when you crack a whip over him; the onlyquestion was whether by a powerful effort he could regain his composureor whether his suffering would overcome his self-restraint to the extentof making him gloomy or querulous during the rest of the meal.

The effect by no means ceased when we rose from table. If by bad lucktwo or three noises occurred at dinner—and our excessive anxiety in thematter was sometimes our undoing—Mr. Pulitzer was so upset that hewould pass a sleepless night. This in its turn meant a day during whichhis tortured body made itself master of his mind, and plunged him into astate of profound dejection.

Like most people who suffer acutely from noise Mr. Pulitzer was verydifferently affected by different kinds of noise. To any noise which wasnecessary, such as that caused by letting go the anchor, he could makehimself indifferent; but very few noises were included in this category.

What caused him the most acute suffering was a noise which, while itinflicted pain upon him, neither gave pleasure to any one else norachieved a useful purpose. Loud talking, whistling, slamming doors,carelessness in handling things, the barking of dogs, the "kick" ofmotor boats, these were the noises which made his existence miserable.

At the back of his physical reaction was a mental reaction whichintensified every shock to his nerves. He complained, and with justice,that, leaving out of consideration an occasional noise which was purelythe result of accident, his life was made a burden by the utterindifference of the majority of human beings to the rights of others.What right, he asked, had any one to run a motor boat with a machine sonoisy that it destroyed the peace of a whole harbor? Above all, whatright had such a person to come miles out to sea and cruise around theyacht, merely to gratify idle curiosity?

He applied the same test to people who shout at one another in thestreets, who whistle at the top of their lungs, or leave doors to slamin the faces of those behind them.

His resentment against these practices was made the more bitter by theknowledge that he was absolutely helpless in the matter whenever he camewithin hearing distance of an ill-bred person.

There was yet another element in this which added to his misery. He saidto me once, when we had been driven off the plage at Mentone by twoAmerican tourists of the worst type, who at a hundred yards' distancefrom each other were yelling their views as to which hotel they proposedto meet at for lunch, "I can never forget that when I was a young man inthe full vigor of my health I used to regard other people's complaintsabout noise as being merely an affectation. I would even make a noisedeliberately in order to annoy any one who forced the absurd pretenseupon my notice. Well, Mr. Ireland, I swear my punishment has been heavyenough."

To revert, however, to Mr. Pulitzer's dependence on those around him, itmust be remembered that nothing could reach him except through themedium of speech. The state of his bank account, the condition of hisinvestments, the reports about The World, his business correspondence,the daily news in which he was so deeply interested, everything uponwhich he based his relation with the affairs of life he had to accept atsecond hand.

It might be supposed that under these circ*mstances Mr. Pulitzer waseasily deceived, that when there was no evil intention, for instance,but simply a desire to spare him annoyance, the exercise of a littleingenuity could shield him from anything likely to wound his feelings orexcite his anger. As a matter of fact I have never known a man upon whomit would not have been easier to practice a deception. His blindness, sofar from being a hindrance to him in reaching the truth, was an aid.

Two instances will serve to illustrate the point. Suppose that I foundin the morning paper an article which I thought would stir J. P. up andspoil his day: when I was called to read to him I had no means ofknowing whether the man whom I replaced had taken the same view asmyself and had skipped the article or whether he had, deliberately orinadvertently, read it to him. The same argument applied to the man whowas to follow me. If I read the article to him I might find out laterthat my predecessor had omitted it, or, if I omitted it, that mysuccessor had read it.

In either event one of us would be in the wrong; and it was impossibleto tell in advance whether the man who read it would be blamed for lackof discretion or praised for his good judgment, as everything dependedupon the exact mood in which Mr. Pulitzer happened to be.

It was an awkward dilemma for the secretary, for, if he did not read itand another man did, Mr. Pulitzer might very well interpret the firstman's caution as an effort to hoodwink him, or the second man's boldnessas an exhibition of indifference to his feelings, or, what was morelikely still, fasten one fault upon one man and the other upon theother.

The same problem presented itself from a different direction. Often, Mr.
Pulitzer would take out of his pocket a bundle of papers—newspaper
clippings, letters, statistical reports, and memoranda of various kinds.
Handing them to his companion he would say:

"Look through these and see if there is a letter with the London postmark, and a sheet of blue paper with some figures on it."

You could never tell what was behind these inquiries. Sometimes he wascontent to know that the papers were there, sometimes he asked you toread them, and as he might very well have them read to him by severalpeople during the day he had a perfect check on all printed or writtenmatter once it was in his hands.

In addition to all this his exquisite sense of hearing enabled him todetect the slightest variation in your tone of voice. If you hesitatedor betrayed the least uneasiness his suspicions were at once aroused andhe took steps to verify from other sources any statement you made undersuch circ*mstances.

It will be readily understood that with his keen and analytic mind Mr.Pulitzer very soon discovered exactly what kind of work was best suitedto the capacities of each of his secretaries. Thus to Mr. Paterson wasassigned the reading of history and biography, to Mr. Pollard, a Harvardman and the only American on the personal staff during my time, novelsand plays in French and English, to Herr Mann German literature of allkinds. Thwaites was chiefly occupied with Mr. Pulitzer's correspondence,and Craven with the yacht accounts, though they, as well as myself, hadroving commissions covering the periodical literature of France,Germany, England, and America.

This division of our reading was by no means rigid; it represented Mr.Pulitzer's view of our respective spheres of greatest utility; but itwas often disturbed by one or another of us going on sick leave orfalling a victim to the weather when we were at sea.

Subject to such chances Pollard always read to Mr. Pulitzer during hisbreakfast hour, and Mann during his siesta, while the reading afterdinner was pretty evenly divided between Pollard, Paterson, and myself.

If Mr. Pulitzer once got it into his head that a particular man wasbetter than any one else for a particular class of work nothing couldreconcile him to that man's absence when such work was to be done.

An amusing instance of this occurred on an occasion when Pollard wassea-sick and could not read to J. P. at breakfast. I was hurriedlysummoned to take his place. I was dumbfounded, for I had never beforebeen called upon for this task, and Mr. Pulitzer had often held it up tome as the last test of fitness, the charter of your graduation. I hadnothing whatever prepared of the kind which J. P. required at that time,and I knew that upon the success of his breakfast might very well dependthe general complexion of his whole day.

In desperation I rushed into Pollard's cabin, and its unhappy occupant,with a generosity which even seasickness could not chill, gave me abundle of Spectators, Athenaeums, and Literary Digests, with pencilmarks in the margins indicating exactly what he had intended to read inthe ordinary course of things. I breathed a sigh of relief and hastenedto the library, where I found J. P. very nervous and out of sorts aftera bad night.

He immediately began to deplore Pollard's absence, on the ground that itwas impossible for anyone to know what to read to him at breakfastwithout years of experience and training. I said nothing, feeling securewith Pollard's prepared "breakfast food," as we called it, in front ofme. I awaited only his signal to begin reading, confident that I couldwin laurels for myself without robbing Pollard, whose wreath was firmlyfixed on his brow.

Alas for my hopes! My very first sentence destroyed my chances, for Ihad the misfortune to begin reading something which he had alreadyheard. Nothing annoyed him more than this; and we all made a habit ofwriting "Dead" across any article in a periodical as soon as J. P. hadhad it, so that we could keep off each other's trails. I am willing tobelieve that this was the first and only time that Pollard ever forgotto kill an article after he had read it, but it was enough, in thedeplorable state of Mr. Pulitzer's nerves that morning, to inflict awound upon my reputation as a breakfast-time reader which months did notsuffice to heal.

With such a bad start Mr. Pulitzer immediately concluded that I wasuseless, and he worked himself up into such a state about it thatpassage after passage, carefully marked by Pollard, was greeted with,

"Stop! Stop! For God's sake!" or,

"Next! Next!" or,

"My God! Is there much more of that?" or,

"Well, Mr. Ireland, isn't there ANYTHING interesting in all thosepapers?"

I bore up manfully against this until he made the one remark I could notstand.

"Now, Mr. Ireland," he said, his voice taking on a tone of gentlereproach, "I know you've done your best, but it is very bad. If youdon't believe me, just take those papers to Mr. Pollard when he feelsbetter; don't disturb him now when he's ill; and show him what you readto me. Now, just for fun, I'd like you to do that. He will tell you thatthere is not a single line which you have read that he would have readhad he been in your place. I hope I haven't been too severe with you;but I hold up my hands and swear that Mr. Pollard wouldn't have read mea line of that rubbish."

This was too much! Carefully controlling my voice so that no trace ofmalice should be detected in it, I replied:

"I took these papers off Mr. Pollard's table a moment before I came toyou, and the parts I have read are the parts he had marked, with theintention of reading them to you himself."

I thought I had J. P. cornered. It was before I learned that there wasno such thing as cornering J. P.

Leaning toward me, and putting a hand on my shoulder, he said:

"Now, boy, don't be put out about this. I do believe, honestly, that youdid your best; but you should not make excuses. When you are wrong,admit it, and try and benefit by my advice. You will find a very naturalexplanation of your mistake. Perhaps the passages Mr. Pollard markedwere the ones he did NOT intend to read to me, or perhaps you took thewrong set of papers; some perfectly natural explanation I am sure."

That night at dinner, when I was still smarting under the sense ofinjustice born of my morning's experience, J. P. gave me an openingwhich I could not allow to pass unused.

Turning to me during a pause in the conversation, he asked:

"And what have YOU been doing this afternoon, Mr. Ireland?"

A happy inspiration flashed across my mind, and I replied:

"I've been making a rough draft of a play, sir."

"Well, my God! I didn't know you wrote plays."

"Very seldom, at any rate; but I had an idea this morning that Icouldn't resist."

"What is it to be called?" inquired J. P.

"'The Importance of being Pollard,'" I answered, whereupon J. P. andeveryone else at the table had a good laugh. They had all been through abreakfast with J. P. when Pollard was away, and could sympathize with myfeelings.

Mr. Pulitzer was very sensible of the difficulties which lay ineverybody's path at the times when lack of sleep or a prolonged attackof pain had made him excessively irritable; and when he had recoveredfrom one of these periods of strain, and was conscious of having beenrough in his manner, he often took occasion to make amends.

Sometimes he would do this when we were at table, adopting a humoroustone as he said, "I'm afraid so-and-so will never forgive me for the wayI treated him this afternoon; but I want to say that he really read mean excellent story and read it very well, and that I am grateful to him.I was feeling wretchedly ill and had a frightful headache, and if I saidanything that hurt his feelings I apologize."

Once, during my weeks of probation, when J. P. felt that he had carriedhis test of my good temper beyond reason, he stopped suddenly in ourwalk, laid a hand on my shoulder, and asked:

"What do you feel when I am unreasonable with you? Do you feel angry? Doyou bear malice?"

"Not at all," I replied. "I suppose my feeling is very much like that ofa nurse for a patient. I realize that you are suffering and that you arenot to be held responsible for what you do at such times."

"I thank you for that, Mr. Ireland," he replied. "You never saidanything which pleased me more. Never forget that I am blind, and that Iam in pain most of the time."

A matter which I had reason to notice at a very early stage of myacquaintance with Mr. Pulitzer was that when he was in a bad mood it wasthe worst possible policy to offer no resistance to his pressure. It waspart of his nature to go forward in any direction until he encounteredan obstacle. When he reached one he paused before making up his mindwhether he would go through it or round it. The further he went the moreinterested he became, his purpose always being to discover a boundary,whether of your knowledge, of your patience, of your memory, or of yournervous endurance.

He never respected a man who did not at some point stand up and resisthim. After the line had once been drawn at that point, and his curiosityhad been gratified, he was always careful not to approach it tooclosely; and it was only on the rare occasions when he was inexceptionally bad condition that any clash occurred after the first onehad been settled.

I put off my own little fight for a long time, partly because I was verymuch affected by the sight of his wretchedness, and partly because I didnot at first realize how necessary it was for him to find out just howfar my self-control could be depended upon. As soon as this became clearto me I determined to seize the first favorable opportunity whichpresented itself of getting into my intrenchments and firing a blankcartridge or two.

It was after I had been with him about a month that my chance came. Ihad noticed that his manner toward me was slowly but steadily growingmore hostile, and I had been expecting daily to receive my dismissalfrom the courteous hands of Dunningham, or to find myself unable to gofurther with the ordeal.

Finally, I consulted Dunningham, and was informed by him, to my greatsurprise, that I was doing very well and that Mr. Pulitzer was pleasedwith me. This information cleared the ground in front of me, and thatafternoon when I was called to walk with Mr. Pulitzer I decided to putout a danger signal if I was hard pressed.

Everything favored such a course. J. P. had enjoyed a good siesta andwas feeling unusually well; if, therefore, he was very disagreeable Iwould know that it was from design and not from an attack of nerves.Furthermore, he selected a subject of conversation in regard to which Iwas as well, if not better, informed than he was—a question relating toBritish Colonial policy.

The moment I began to speak I saw that his object was to drive me to thewall. He flatly contradicted me again and again, insinuated that I hadnever met certain statesmen whose words I repeated, and, finally, afterI had concluded my arguments in support of the view I was advancing, hesaid in an angry tone, assumed for the occasion, of course:

"Mr. Ireland, I am really distressed that we should have had thisdiscussion. I had hoped that, with years of training and advice, I mighthare been able to make something out of you; but any man who couldseriously hold the opinion you have expressed, and could attempt tojustify it with the mass of inaccuracies and absurdities that you havegiven me, is simply a damned fool."

"I am sorry you said that, Mr. Pulitzer," I replied in a very seriousvoice.

"Why, for God's sake, you don't mind my calling you a damned fool, doyou?"

"Not in the least, sir. But when you call me a damned fool you shatteran ideal I held about you."

"What's that? An ideal about me? What do you mean?"

"Well, sir, years before I met you I had heard that if there was onething above all others which distinguished you from all otherjournalists it was that you had the keenest nose for news of any manliving."

"What has that to do with my calling you a damned fool?"

"Simply this, that the fact that I'm a damned fool hasn't been news tome any time during the past twenty years."

He saw the point at once, laughed heartily and, putting an arm round myshoulders, as was his habit with all of us when he wished to show afriendly feeling or take the edge off a severe rebuke, said:

"Now, boy, you're making fun of me, and you must not make fun of a poorold blind man. Now, then, I take it all back; I shouldn't have calledyou a damned fool."

It was from this moment that my relations with Mr. Pulitzer began toimprove.

A few days after the incident which I have just related we droppedanchor in the Bay of Naples, and Mr. Pulitzer announced his intention ofsailing for New York by a White Star boat the following afternoon. Heasked me to go with him; and I accepted this invitation as the sign thatmy period of probation was over.

Everything was prepared for our departure. Dunningham workedindefatigably. He went aboard the White Star boat, arranged for theaccommodation of our party, had partitions knocked down so that Mr.Pulitzer could have a private diningroom and a library, and convoyedaboard twenty or thirty trunks and cases containing books, mineralwaters, wines, cigars, fruit, special articles of diet, clothes, furcoats, rugs, etc., for J. P.

We all packed our belongings, telegraphed to our friends, sent ashorefor the latest issues of the magazines, and sat around in deck chairswaiting for the word to follow our things aboard the liner.

After half an hour of suspense Dunningham came out of the library, wherehe had been in consultation with J. P., and as he advanced toward us werose and made our way to the gangway, where one of the launches wasswinging to her painter.

Dunningham, smiling and imperturbable as ever, raised his hand and said,
"No, gentlemen, Mr. Pulitzer has changed his mind; we are not going to
America. We remain on the yacht and sail this afternoon for Athens."

He disappeared over the side, and an hour or two later returned with thechef and the butler and one of the saloon stewards, who had gone aboardthe liner to make things ready, and some tons of baggage.

We sailed just as the White Star boat cleared the end of the mole. Whenshe passed us, within a hundred yards, she dipped her flag. I waswalking with Mr. Pulitzer at the time and mentioned the exchange ofsalutes. He was silent for a few minutes. Then he asked, "Has she passedus?" "Yes," I replied, "she's half-a-mile ahead of us now." "Have yougot your pad with you? Just make a note to ask Thwaites to cable to NewYork from the next port we call at and tell someone to send two hundredof the best Havana cigars to the captain. That man has some sense. Mostcaptains would have blown their damned whistle when they dipped theirflag. Have a note written to the captain telling him that I appreciatedhis consideration."

Our voyage to Athens and thence, through the Corinth Canal, back toMentone, was free from incident. J. P. discussed the possibility ofgoing to Constantinople or to Venice, but our cabled inquiries about theweather brought discouraging replies describing an unusually coldseason, and these projects were abandoned.

About this time Mr. Pulitzer's health showed a marked improvement, whichwas reflected in the most agreeable manner in the general conditions oflife on the yacht. He had been worried for some weeks about his plansfor going to New York, and this had interfered with his sleep, hadincreased his nervousness and aggravated every symptom of his physicalweakness. With this matter finally disposed of he could look forward toa peaceful cruise, during which he would be able to catch up with hiscareful reading of the marked file of The World, and thus remove aweight from his mind.

He detested having work accumulate on his hands, but when his health wasworse than usual this was unavoidable. He always drove himself to thelast ounce of his endurance, and it was only when his conditionindicated an imminent collapse that he would consent to drop everythingexcept light reading, and to spend a few days out at sea without callinganywhere for letters, papers, or cables.

It was during this, our last, cruise in the Mediterranean that Idiscovered that Mr. Pulitzer was one of the best and most fascinatingtalkers I had ever heard. Once in a while, when he was feeling cheerfulafter a good night's rest and a pleasant day's reading, he monopolizedthe conversation at lunch or dinner. He was generally more willing totalk when we took our meals at a large round table on deck, for he lovedthe sea breeze and was soothed by it.

When he talked he simply compelled your attention. I often felt that, ifhe had not made his career otherwise, he might have been one of theworld's greatest actors, or one of its most popular orators. Inflexibility of tone, in variety of gesture, in the change of his facialexpression he was the peer of anyone I have seen on the stage.

To an extraordinary flow of language he added a range of information anda vividness of expression truly astonishing. His favorite themes werepolitics and the lives of great men. To his monologues on the formersubject he brought a ripe wisdom, based upon the most extensive readingand the shrewdest observation, and quickened by the keenest enthusiasm.He was by no means a political bigot; and there was not a politicalexperiment, from the democracy of the Greeks to the referendum inSwitzerland, with the details of which he was not perfectly familiar.Although he was a convinced believer in the Republican form ofgovernment, having, as he expressed it, "no use for the King business,"he was fully alive to the peculiar dangers and difficulties with whichmodern progress has confronted popular institutions.

When the publication of some work like Rosebery's Chatham or Monypenny'sDisraeli afforded an occasion, Mr. Pulitzer would spend an hour beforewe left the table in giving us a picture of some exciting crisis inEnglish politics, the high lights picked out in pregnant phrases ofcharacterization, in brilliant epitome of the facts, in spontaneousepigram, and illustrative anecdote. Whether he spoke of the HollandHouse circle, of the genius of Cromwell, of Napoleon's campaigns, orsought to point a moral from the lives of Bismarck, Metternich, LouisXI, or Kossuth, every sentence was marked by the same penetratinganalysis, the same facility of expression, the same clearness ofthought.

On rare occasions he talked of his early days, telling us in a charming,simple, and unaffected manner of the tragic and humorous episodes withwhich his youth had been crowded. Of the former I recall a strikingdescription of a period during which he filled two positions in St.Louis, one involving eight hours' work during the day, the other eighthours during the night. Four of the remaining eight were devoted tostudying English.

His first connection with journalism arose out of an experience which herelated with a wealth of detail which showed how deeply it had beenburned into his memory.

When he arrived in St. Louis he soon found himself at the end of hisresources, and was faced with the absolute impossibility of securingwork in that city. In company with forty other men he applied at theoffice of a general agent who had advertised for hands to go down theMississippi and take up well-paid posts on a Louisiana sugar plantation.The agent demanded a fee of five dollars from each applicant, and, bypooling their resources, the members of this wretched band managed tomeet the charge. The same night they were taken on board a steamer whichimmediately started down river. At three o'clock in the morning theywere landed on the river bank about forty miles below St. Louis, at aspot where there was neither house, road, nor clearing. Before themarooned party had time to realize its plight the steamer haddisappeared.

A council of war was held, and it was decided that they should trampback to St. Louis, and put a summary termination to the agent's careerby storming his office and murdering him. Whether or not this recklessprogram would have been carried out it is impossible to say, for when,three days later, the ragged army arrived in the city, worn out withfatigue and half dead from hunger, the agent had decamped.

A reporter happened to pick up the story, and by mere chance metPulitzer and induced him to write out in German the tale of hisexperiences. This account created such an impression on the mind of theeditor through whose hands it passed that Pulitzer was offered, andaccepted, with the greatest misgivings, as he solemnly assured us, aposition as reporter on the Westliche Post.

The event proved that there had been no grounds for J. P.'s modestdoubts. After he had been some time on the paper, things went so badlythat two reporters had to be got rid of. The editor kept Pulitzer on thestaff, because he felt that if anyone was destined to force him out ofthe editorial chair it was not a young, uneducated foreigner, who couldhardly mumble half-a-dozen words of English. The editor was mistaken.Within a few years J. P. not only supplanted him but became half-proprietor of the paper.

Another interesting anecdote of his early days, which he told with greatrelish, related to his experience as a fireman on a Mississippiferryboat. His limited knowledge of English was regarded by the captainas a personal affront, and that fire-eating old-timer made it hisparticular business to let young Pulitzer feel the weight of hisauthority. At last the overwork and the constant bullying drove J. P.into revolt, and he left the boat after a violent quarrel with thecaptain.

Whenever J. P. reached this point in the story, and I heard him tell itseveral times, his face lighted up with amusem*nt, and he had to stopuntil he had enjoyed a good laugh.

"Well, my God!" he would conclude, "about two years later, when I hadlearned English and studied some law and been made a notary public, thisvery same captain walked into my office in St. Louis one day to havesome documents sealed. As soon as he saw me he stopped short, as if hehad seen a ghost, and said, "Say, ain't you the damned cuss that I firedoff my boat?"

"I told him yes, I was. He was the most surprised man I ever saw, butafter he had sworn himself hoarse he faced the facts and gave me hisbusiness."

Mr. Pulitzer always declared that the proudest day of his life, theoccasion on which his vanity was most tickled, was when he was electedto the Missouri Legislature. Things were evidently run in a ratherhappy-go-lucky fashion in those early days, since, as he admitted with areminiscent smile, he was absolutely disqualified for election, beingneither an American citizen nor of age.

Mr. Pulitzer's anecdotes about himself always ended in one way. He wouldbreak off suddenly and exclaim, "For Heaven's sake, why do you let merun on like this; as soon as a man gets into the habit of talking abouthis past adventures he might just as well make up his mind that he isgrowing old and that his intellect is giving way."

It was this strong disinclination for personal reminiscence whichprevented Mr. Pulitzer, despite many urgent appeals, from writing hisautobiography. It is a thousand pities that he adhered to thisresolution, for his career, as well in point of interest as inachievement and picturesqueness, would have stood the test of comparisonwith that of any man whose life-story has been preserved in literature.

CHAPTER VI

WIESBADEN AND AN ATLANTIC VOYAGE

At last the time came when we had to leave the yacht and make apilgrimage to Wiesbaden, in order that Mr. Pulitzer might submit to acure before sailing for New York.

The first stage of our journey took us from Genoa to Milan. Here westayed for five hours so that J. P. could have his lunch and his siestacomfortably at an hotel. Paterson had been sent ahead two or three daysin advance to look over the hotels and to select the one which promisedto be least noisy. On our arrival in Milan J. P. was taken to anautomobile, and in ten minutes he was in his rooms.

Simple as these arrangements appear from the bald statement of whatactually happened they really involved a great deal of care andforethought. It was not enough that Paterson should visit half-a-dozenhotels and make his choice from a cursory inspection. After his choicehad been narrowed down by a process of elimination he had to spendseveral hours in each of two or three hotels, in the room intended forJ. P., so that he could detect any of the hundred noises which mightmake the room uninhabitable to its prospective tenant.

The room might be too near the elevator, it might be too near aservants' staircase, it might overlook a courtyard where carpets werebeaten, or a street with heavy traffic, it might be within earshot of adining-room where an orchestra played or a smoking-room with thepossibility of loud talking, it might open off a passage which gaveaccess to some much frequented reception-room.

Most of these points could be determined by merely observing thelocation of the room. But other things were to be considered. Did thewindows rattle, did the floor creak, did the doors open and shutquietly, was the ventilation good, were there noisy guests in theadjoining rooms?

This last difficulty was, I understand, usually overcome by Mr. Pulitzerengaging, in addition to his own room, a room on either side of it,three rooms facing it, the room above it and the room beneath it.

Even the question of the drive from the station to the hotel had to bethought out. A trial trip was made in an automobile. If the routefollowed a car line or passed any spot likely to be noisy, such as amarket place or a school playground, or if it led over a roughly pavedroad on which the car would jolt, another route had to be selected,which, as far as possible, dodged the unfavorable conditions.

Our carefully arranged journey passed without incident. We had a privatecar from Milan to Frankfort and another for the short run to Wiesbaden,where we arrived in time for lunch on the day after our departure fromGenoa. Everything had been prepared for our reception by some one whohad made similar arrangements on former occasions. We occupied the wholeof a villa belonging to one of the large hotels, and situated less thana hundred yards from it.

In the main our life was modeled upon that at the Cap Martin villa; butpart of Mr. Pulitzer's morning was devoted to baths, massage, and thedrinking of waters. Our meals were taken, as a rule, either in a privatedining-room at the hotel or in the big restaurant of the Kurhaus; butwhen Mr. Pulitzer was feeling more than usually tired the table was laidin the dining-room of the villa.

Our dinners at the Kurhaus were a welcome change from our ordinary mealswith their set routine of literary discussions. Mr. Pulitzer wasimmensely interested in people; but it was impossible for him to meetthem, except on rare occasions, because the excitement was bad for hishealth. Whenever he dined in a crowded restaurant, however, our time wasfully occupied in describing with the utmost minuteness the men, women,and children around us.

The Kurhaus was an excellent place for the exercise of our descriptivepowers. In addition to the ordinary crowd of pleasure-seekers andhealth-hunters there were, during a great part of our visit, a largenumber of military men, for the Kaiser spent a week at Wiesbaden thatyear and reviewed some troops, and this involved careful preparation inadvance by a host of court officials and high army officers.

Under these circ*mstances the dining-room of the Kurhaus presented ascene full of color and animation. Sometimes J. P. said to one of us:"Look around for a few minutes and pick out the most interesting-looking man and woman in the room, examine them carefully, try and catchthe tone of their voices, and when you are ready describe them to me."Or he might say: "I hear a curious, sharp, incisive voice somewhere overthere on my right. There it is now—don't you hear it?—s s s s s, everys like a hiss. Describe that man to me; tell me what kind of people he'stalking to; tell me what you think his profession is." Or it might be:"There are some gabbling women over there. Describe them to me. How arethey dressed, are they painted, are they wearing jewels, how old arethey?"

In whatever form the request was made its fulfilment meant a descriptioncovering everything which could be detected by the eye or surmised fromany available clew.

Describing people to J. P. was by no means an easy task. It was no usesaying that a man had a medium-sized nose, that he was of averageheight, and that his hair was rather dark. Everything had to be given infeet and inches and in definite colors. You had to exercise your utmostpowers to describe the exact cast of the features, the peculiar textureand growth of the hair, the expression of the eyes, and every littletrick of gait or gesture.

Mr. Pulitzer was very sceptical of everybody's faculty of description.He made us describe people, and specially his own children and otherswhom he knew well, again and again, and his unwillingness to accept anydescription as being good rested no doubt upon the wide divergencebetween the different descriptions he received of the same person.

There were few things which Mr. Pulitzer enjoyed more than having a facedescribed to him, whether of a living person or of a portrait, and asour table-talk was often about men and women of distinction ornotoriety, dead or living, any one of us might be called upon at anytime to portray feature by feature some person whose name had beenmentioned.

By providing ourselves with illustrated catalogues of the Royal Academyexhibitions and of the National Portrait Gallery, and by cutting out theportraits with which the modern publisher so lavishly decorates hisannouncements, we generally managed, by pulling together, to cover theground pretty well. I have sat through a meal during which one oranother of us furnished a microscopic description of the faces of WarrenHastings, Lord Clive, President Wilson, the present King and Queen ofEngland, the late John W. Gates, Ignace Paderewski, and an odd dozencurrent murderers, embezzlers, divorce habitues, and candidates forpolitical office.

The delicate enjoyment of this game was not reached, however, until, atthe following meal, one of us, who had been absent at the originaldelineation, was asked to cover some of the ground that had been goneover a few hours earlier. Mr. Pulitzer would say: "Is Mr. So-and-Sohere? Well, now, just for fun, let us see what he has to say about theappearance of some of the people we spoke about at lunch."

The result was almost always an astonishing disclosure of the inabilityof intelligent people to observe closely, to describe accurately, and toreach any agreement as to the significance of what they have seen. Itwas bad enough when the latest witness had before him the actualpictures on which the first description had been based; even thencrooked noses became straight, large mouths small, disdain was turned toaffability and ingenuousness to guile; but where this guide was lackingthe descriptions were often ludicrously discrepant.

While we were at Wiesbaden we seldom spent much time at the dinnertable, as J. P. usually took his choice between walking in the garden ofthe Kurhaus and listening to the orchestra and going to the opera. Onenight we motored over to Frankfort to hear Der Rosenkavalier, but theexcursion was a dismal failure. We had to go over a stretch of very badroad, and with J. P. shaken into a state of extreme nervousness the verymodern strains of the opera failed to please.

At the end of the second act J. P., who had been growing more and moredismal as the music bumped along its disjointed course, either in vainsearch or in careful avoidance of anything resembling a pleasant sound,turned to me and said: "My God! I can't stand any more of this. Will youplease go and find the automobile and bring it round to the mainentrance. I want to go home."

I saw a great deal of Mr. Pulitzer while we were at Wiesbaden, owing tothe circ*mstance that Paterson was called to England on urgent privateaffairs and Pollard was away on leave. The absence of these two men wasas much regretted by the staff as it was by J. P. himself. Paterson was,from his extraordinary erudition, seldom at a loss for a topic ofconversation which would rivet J. P.'s attention, and Pollard, who hadbeen a number of years with J. P., was not only, on his own subjects,the conversational peer of Paterson, but was in addition, from hissoothing voice and manner and from his long and careful study of J. P.,invaluable as a mental and nervous sedative.

It was at Wiesbaden that I first began to read books regularly to J. P.
I read him portions of the biographies of Parnell, of Sir William Howard
Russell, of President Polk (very little of this), of Napoleon, of Martin
Luther, and at least a third of Macaulay's Essays.

He was a great admirer of Lord Macaulay's writings and read themconstantly, as he found in them most of the qualities which he admired—great descriptive power, political acumen, satire, neatness of phrase,apt comparisons and analogies, and shrewd analysis of character. Manypassages he made me read over and over again at different times. Ireproduce a few of his favorite paragraphs for the purpose of showingwhat appealed to his taste.

From the Essay on Sir William Temple, the following lines referring tothe Right Hon. Thomas Peregrine Courtenay, who, after his retirementfrom public life, wrote the Memoirs of Temple and stated in his prefacethat experience had taught him the superiority of literature to politicsfor developing the kindlier feelings and conducing to an agreeable life:

He has little reason, in our opinion, to envy any of those who are stillengaged in a pursuit from which, at most, they can only expect that, byrelinquishing liberal studies and social pleasures, by passing nightswithout sleep and summers without one glimpse of the beauty of nature,they may attain that laborious, that invidious, that closely watchedslavery which is mocked with the name of power.

More often than any others I read him the following passages from the
Essay on Milton:

The final and permanent fruits of liberty are wisdom, moderation, andmercy. Its immediate effects are often atrocious crimes, conflictingerrors, scepticism on points the most clear, dogmatism on points themost mysterious. It is just at this crisis that its enemies love toexhibit it. They pull down the scaffolding from the half-finishededifice: they point to the flying dust, the falling bricks, thecomfortless rooms, the frightful irregularity of the whole appearance;and then ask in scorn where the promised splendor and comfort is to befound. If such miserable sophisms were to prevail there would never be agood house or a good government in the world.

There is only one cure for the evils which newly acquired freedomproduces; and that cure is freedom.

The blaze of truth and liberty may at first dazzle and bewilder nationswhich have become half blind in the house of bondage. But let them gazeon, and they will soon be able to bear it. In a few years men learn toreason. The extreme violence of opinion subsides. Hostile theoriescorrect each other. The scattered elements of truth cease to contend,and begin to coalesce. And at length a system of justice and order iseduced out of the chaos.

If men are to wait for liberty till they become wise and good inslavery, they may indeed wait forever.

I was surprised one day on returning to the villa after a walk in the
Kurhaus gardens with J. P. to find an addition to our company in the
person of the second gentleman who had examined me in London at the time
I had applied for the post of secretary to Mr. Pulitzer.

This gentleman occupied what I imagine must have been the only post ofits kind in the world. He was, in addition to whatever other duties heperformed, Mr. Pulitzer's villa-seeker.

It was Mr. Pulitzer's custom to talk a good deal about his future plans,not those for the immediate future, in regard to which he was usuallyvery reticent, but those for the following year, or for a vague"someday" when many things were to be done which as yet were nothingmore than the toys with which his imagination delighted to play.

As he always spent a great part of the year in Europe, a residence hadto be found for him, it might be in Vienna, or London, or Berlin, orMentone, or in any other place which emerged as a possibility out of thelong discussions of the next year's itinerary.

Whenever the arguments in favor of any place had so far prevailed that avisit there had been accepted in principle as one of our futuremovements it became the duty of the villa-seeker to go to the locality,to gather a mass of information about its climate, its amenities, itsresident and floating population, its accessibility by sea and land, theopportunities for hearing good music, and to report in the minutestdetail upon all available houses which appeared likely to suit Mr.Pulitzer's needs.

These reports were accompanied by maps, plans, and photographs, and theywere considered by J. P. with the utmost care. Particular attention waspaid to the streets and to the country roads in the neighborhood, as itwas necessary to have facilities for motoring, for riding, and forwalking.

The next step was to secure a villa, and after that had been done thealterations had to be undertaken which would make it habitable for J. P.These might be of a comparatively simple nature, a matter of fittingsilencers to the doors and putting up double windows to keep out thenoise; but they might extend much further and involve more or lesselaborate changes in the interior arrangements. Even after all this hadbeen done a sudden shift of plans might send the villa-seeker scurryingacross Europe to begin the whole process over again in order to beprepared for new developments.

At the time I left London to join J. P. at Mentone I had stipulatedthat, if I should chance to be selected to fill the vacant post, Ishould not be called upon to take up my duties until I had returned toLondon and spent a fortnight there in clearing up my private affairs.

After we had been a few weeks at Wiesbaden it became absolutelynecessary for me to go to London for that purpose; and this led to astruggle with J. P. which nearly brought our relations to an end.

As soon as I broached the subject of a fortnight's leave of absence J.P. set his face firmly against the proposal. This was due not so much toany feeling on his part that my absence would be an inconvenience tohim, for both Paterson and Pollard had returned to duty, but to analmost unconquerable repugnance he had to any one except himselfinitiating any plan which would in the slightest degree affect hisarrangements. His sensitiveness on this point was so delicate that itwas impossible, for instance, for any of us to accept an invitation tolunch or dine with friends who might happen to be in our neighborhood,or to ask for half a day off for any purpose whatever.

I do not mean to say that we never got away for a meal or that we werenever free for a few hours; as a matter of fact, J. P. was by no meansungenerous in such things once a man had passed the trial stage; but,although J. P. might say to you, "Take two days off and amuse yourself,"or "Take the evening off, and don't trouble to get back to work untillunch-time to-morrow," it was out of the question for you to say to J.P.: "An old friend of mine is here for the day, would you mind my takinglunch with him?"

No one, I am sure, ever made a suggestion of that kind to J. P. morethan once—the effect upon him was too startling.

J. P.'s favors in the way of giving time off were always granted subjectto a change of mind on his part; and these changes were often so suddenthat it was our custom as soon as leave was given to disappear from theyacht or the villa at the earliest possible moment. But at times even aninstant departure was too slow, for it might happen that before you wereout of the room J. P. would say: "Just a moment, Mr. So-and-So, youwouldn't mind if I asked you to put off your holiday till to-morrow,would you? I think I would like you to finish that novel this evening; Iam really interested to see how it comes out."

This, of course, was rather disappointing; but the great disadvantage ofnot getting away was that Mr. Pulitzer's memory generally clung verytenaciously to the fact that he had given you leave, and lost thesubsequent act of rescinding it. The effect of this was that for thepractical purpose of getting a day off your turn was used up as soon asJ. P. granted it, without any reference to whether you actually got itor not; and the phrase, "until to-morrow," was not to be interpretedliterally or to be acted upon without a further distinct permission.

The only "right" any of us had to time off was to our annual vacation oftwo weeks, which we had to take whenever J. P. wished. If, for anyreason, one of us wanted leave of absence for a week or so, the matterhad to be put into the hands of the discreet and diplomatic Dunningham;and so when the time came when I simply had to go to London it was toDunningham I went for counsel.

Judging by the results, his intercession on my behalf was not verysuccessful, for, on the occasion of our next meeting, J. P. made itclear to me that if I insisted on going to London it would be on pain ofhis displeasure and at the peril of my post. As I look back upon theincident, however, it is quite clear to me that the whole of hisarguments and his dark hints were launched merely to test my sense ofduty to those persons in London whom I had promised to see.

A day or two later J. P. told me that as I was going to London I mightas well stay there for a month or two before joining him in New York. Heoutlined a course of study for me, which included lessons in speaking(my voice being harsh and unpleasant) and visits to all the principalart galleries, theaters and other places of interest, with a view todescribing everything when I rejoined him.

On the eve of my departure Dunningham handed me, with Mr. Pulitzer'scompliments, an envelope containing a handsome present, in the mostacceptable form a present can take.

It was not until I was in the train, and the train had started, that Iwas able to realize that I was free. During the journey to London myextraordinary experiences of the past three months detached themselvesfrom the sum of my existence and became cloaked with that haze ofunreality which belongs to desperate illness or to a tragedy looked backupon from days of health and peace. Walking down St. James's Streettwenty-four hours after leaving Wiesbaden, J. P. and the yacht and thesecretaries invaded my memory not as things experienced but as thingsseen in a play or read in a story long ago.

I lost no time in making myself comfortable in London. Inquiriesdirected to the proper quarter soon brought me into touch with agentleman to whose skill, I was assured, no voice, however disagreeable,could fail to respond. I saw my friends, my business associates, mytailor. I went to see Fanny's First Play three times, the NationalPortrait Gallery twice, the National Gallery once, and laid out my plansto see all the places in London (shame forbidding me to enumerate them)which every Englishman ought to have seen and which I had not seen.

This lasted for about two weeks, during which I saw something of Craven,who had left us in Naples to study something or other in London, and whowas under orders to hold himself in readiness to go to New York with J.P. We dined at my club one night, and when I returned to my flat I founda telegram from Mr. Tuohy, instructing me to join J. P. in Liverpool thenext day in time to sail early in the afternoon on the Cedric, as it hadbeen decided to leave Craven in London for the present.

The voyage differed but little from our cruises in the yacht. J. P. tookhis meals in his own suite, and as Mrs. Pulitzer and Miss Pulitzer wereon board they usually dined with him, one of the secretaries making afourth at table.

In the matter of guarding J. P. from noise, extraordinary precautionswere taken. Heavy mats were laid outside his cabin, specially made adozen years before and stored by the White Star people waiting his call;that portion of the deck which surrounded his suite was roped off sothat the passengers could not promenade there; and a close-fitting greenbaize door shut off the corridor leading to his quarters. His meals wereserved by his own butler and by one of the yacht stewards; and his dailyroutine went on as usual.

During the voyage I was broken in to the task of reading the magazinesto J. P. So far as current issues were concerned I had to take the oneshe liked best—The Atlantic Monthly, The American Magazine, TheQuarterly Review, The Edinburgh Review, The World's Work, and The NorthAmerican Review—and thoroughly master their contents.

While I was engaged on this sufficiently arduous labor I made, on cards,lists of the titles of all the articles and abstracts of all the moreimportant ones. I have by me as I write a number of these lists, and Ireproduce one of them.

The following list of articles represents what Mr. Pulitzer got from me
in a highly condensed form during ONE HOUR: "The Alleged Passing of
Wagner," "The Decline and Fall of Wagner," "The Mission of Richard
Wagner," "The Swiftness of Justice in England and in the United States,"
"The Public Lands of the United States," "New Zealand and the Woman's
Vote," "The Lawyer and the Community," "The Tariff Make-believe," "The
Smithsonian Institute," "The Spirit and Letter of Exclusion," "The
Panama Canal and American Shipping," "The Authors and Signers of the
Declaration of Independence," "The German Social Democracy," "The
Changing Position of American Trade," "The Passing of Polygamy."

I remember very well the occasion on which I gave him these articles. Wewere walking on one of the lower promenade decks of the Cedric, and J.P. asked me if I had any magazine articles ready for him. I told him,having the list of articles in my left hand, that I had fifteen ready.He pulled out his watch, and holding it toward me said:

"What time is it?"

"Twelve o'clock," I replied.

"Very good; that gives us an hour before lunch. Now go on with yourarticles; I'll allow you four minutes for each of them."

He did not actually take four minutes for each, for some of them did notinterest him after my summary had run for a minute or so, but we justgot the fifteen in during the hour.

After all that was possible had been done in the way of reducing thenumber of magazine articles, by rejecting the unsuitable ones, and theirlength by careful condensation, we were unable to keep pace with thesupply. When a hundred or so magazines had accumulated Mr. Pulitzer hadthe lists of contents read to him, and from these he selected thearticles which he wished to have read; and these arrears were disposedof when an opportunity presented itself.

At times Mr. Pulitzer did not feel well enough to take this concentratedmental food, and turned for relief to novels, plays and lightliterature; at times, when he was feeling unusually well, he occupiedhimself for several days in succession with matters concerning TheWorld—in dictating editorials, letters of criticism, instruction andinquiry, or in considering the endless problems relating to policy,business management, personnel, and the soaring price of white paper.

An interesting feature of his activity on behalf of The World was hisselection of new writers. Although his supervision of the paper extendedto every branch, from advertising to news, from circulation to color-printing, it was upon the editorial page that he concentrated his bestenergies and his keenest observation.

It is no exaggeration to say that the editorial page of The World was toJ. P. what a child is to a parent. He had watched it daily for a quarterof a century. During that time, I am told, he had read to him seventy-five per cent. of all the editorials which were printed on it, and hadevery cartoon described. Those who are interested in the editorial pageof The World should read Mr. John L. Heaton's admirable History of aPage, published last year.

J. P.'s theory of editorial writing, which I heard him propound a dozentimes, called for three cardinal qualities—brevity, directness andstyle—and, as these could not be expected to adorn hasty writing, heemployed a large staff of editorial writers and tried to limit each manto an average of half a column a day, unless exceptional circ*mstancescalled for a lengthy treatment of some important question.

He watched the style of each man with the closest attention, examiningthe length of the paragraphs, of the sentences, of the words, thevariety of the vocabulary, the choice of adjectives and adverbs, theemployment of superlatives, the selection of a heading, the nicety ofadjustment between the thought to be expressed and the language employedfor its expression.

If he chanced in the course of his reading to run across any apt phrasein regard to literary style he would get one of us to type a number ofcopies and send one to each of the editorial writers on The World. Thefollowing were sent from Wiesbaden:

"Thiers compares a perfect style to glass through which we look withoutbeing conscious of its presence between the object and the eye." (FromAbraham Hayward's "Essay on Thiers.")

"Lessing, Lichtenberger, and Schopenhauer agreed in saying that it isdifficult to write well, that no man naturally writes well, and that onemust, in order to acquire a style, work STRENUOUSLY … I have tried towrite well."(Nietzsche.)

J. P. was never tired of discussing literary style, of makingcomparisons between one language and another from the point of view ofan exact expression of an idea, or of the different SOUND of the sameidea expressed in different languages. For instance, he asked us onceduring an argument about translations of Shakespeare to compare thelines:

"You are my true and honorable wife,
As dear to me as are the ruddy drops
That visit my sad heart."

with the German:

"Ihr seid mein echtes, ehrenwertes Weib,
So teuer mir, als wie die Purpurtropfen
Die um mein trauernd Herz sich drangen."

and the opening words of Hamlet's soliloquy with the German:

"Sein oder Nichtsein, das ist hier die Frage."

Of the former pair he greatly preferred the English, of the latter the
German.

Sometimes we discussed at great length the exact English equivalent ofsome German or French word. I remember one which he came back to againand again, the word leichtsinnig. We suggested as translations,frivolous, irresponsible, hare-brained, thoughtless, chicken-witted,foolish, crazy; but we never found an expression which suited him.

But I have wandered away from the subject of editorial writers. Duringthe time I was with J. P. he selected two, and his method of selectionis of interest in view of the great importance he attached to theeditorial page of The World.

As I have said elsewhere, J. P. got practically all the importantarticles from every paper of consequence in the United States. If heread an editorial which impressed him, possibly from a Chicago or a SanFrancisco paper, he put it on one side and told Pollard, who read allthis kind of material to him, to watch the clippings from that paper andto pick out any other editorials which he could identify as the work ofthe same man. Five years with J. P. had made Pollard an expert inpenetrating the disguise of the editorial "We."

As soon as a representative collection of the unknown man's writings hadbeen made J. P. instructed some one on The World to find out who theauthor was and to request that he would supply what he considered to bea fair sample of his work, a dozen or more articles, and a briefbiography of himself.

If Mr. Pulitzer was satisfied with these an offer would be made to theman to join the staff of The World. Sometimes even these gentlemen weresummoned to New York, to Bar Harbor, to Wiesbaden, or to Mentone,according to circ*mstances. I have met several of them, and they allagree in saying that the hardest work they ever did in their lives wasto keep pace with Mr. Pulitzer while they were running the gauntlet ofhis judgment.

There are few men highly placed on The World to-day who have not beenthrough such an ordeal. I doubt if any man was ever served by a staffwhose individual ability, temper, resources and limitations were sominutely known to their employer. He knew them to the last ounce oftheir endurance, to the last word of their knowledge, beyond the lastveil which enables even the most intelligent man to harbor, mercifully,a few delusions about himself.

To those who did not know Mr. Pulitzer it may appear that I exaggeratehis powers in this direction. As a matter of fact I believe that itwould be impossible to do so.

When he had his sight he judged men as others judge them, and, makingfull allowance for his genius for observation and analysis, he was nodoubt influenced to some extent by appearance, manners and associations.But after he became blind and retired from contact with all men, excepta circle which cannot have exceeded a score in number, his judgment tookon a new measure of clearness and perspective.

As a natural weapon of self-defense he developed a system of searchingexamination before which no subterfuge could stand. It was minute,persistent, comprehensive and ingenious in the last degree. It mightbegin to-day, reach an apparent conclusion, and be renewed after amonth's silence. In the meantime, while the whole matter was becomingdim in your mind, inquiries had been made in a dozen directions inregard to the points at issue; and when the subject was reopened youwere confronted not only with J. P.'s perfect memory of what you hadsaid but with a detailed knowledge of matters which you had passed by asunimportant, or deliberately avoided for any one of a dozen perfectlyhonest reasons.

J. P.'s questions covered names, places, dates, motives, the chain ofcausation, what you said, what you did, what you felt, what you thought,the reasons why you felt, thought, acted as you did, the reasons whyyour thought and action had not been such-and-such, your opinion of yourown conduct, in looking back upon the episode, your opinion of thethoughts, actions and feelings of everybody else concerned, yourconjectures as to THEIR motives, what you would do if you were againfaced with the same problem, why you would do it, why you had not doneit on the previous occasion.

Starting at any point in your career Mr. Pulitzer worked backward andforward until all that you had ever thought or done, from your earliestrecollection down to the present moment, had been disclosed to him sofar as he was interested to know it, and your memory served you.

This process varied in length according to the nature of the experiencesof the person subjected to it, and to the precise quality of Mr.Pulitzer's interest in him. In my own case it lasted about three monthsand was copiously interspersed with written statements by myself offacts about myself, opinions by myself about myself, and endlessreferences to people I had known during the past twenty-five years.

Mr. Pulitzer's attitude toward references was the product of vastexperience. He complained that scores of men had come to him withreferences from some of the most distinguished people living, referencesso glowing that one man should have been ashamed to write them and theother ashamed to receive them, references of such a character that theirhappy possessors might, without being guilty of immodesty, have appliedfor the Chief Justiceship of the United States, the Viceroyalty ofIndia, the Archbishopric of Canterbury, the Presidency of the RoyalCollege of Surgeons, or the Mastership of Baliol, but that the greatmajority of these men had turned out to be ignorant, lazy and stupid toan unbelievable degree.

When the question of my own references came up I begged in a humorousway that, having heard J. P.'s views about the value of testimonials, myfriends should be spared the useless task of eulogizing me.

"No, my God!" exclaimed J. P. "None of them shall be spared. What I saidabout testimonials is all perfectly true; but it only serves to showwhat sort of person a man must be who can't even get testimonials. No,no; if a man brings references it proves nothing; but if he can't, itproves a great deal."

Our voyage to New York was marred by but one distressing feature, thebehavior of two infants, one of whom cried all day and the other allnight. J. P. stood it very well. I think he regarded it as one of thefew necessary noises. He suffered from it, of course, but the onlyremark he ever made to me about it was:

"I really think that one of the most extraordinary things in the worldis the amount of noise a child can make. Here we are with a sixty-milegale blowing and some ten thousand horse-power engines working insidethe ship, and yet that child can make itself heard from one end of theboat to the other. I think there must be two of them; the sound is notquite the same at night. Now, Mr. Ireland, do, just for the fun of it,find out about that. Don't let the mother know—I wouldn't like to hurther feelings; but ask one of the stewards about it."

In due course we reached New York. The Liberty, which had crosseddirectly from Marseilles, met us at quarantine, and Mr. Pulitzer wastransferred to her without landing. The rest of us joined the yacht thesame evening. That night we sailed for Bar Harbor.

CHAPTER VII

BAR HARBOR AND THE LAST CRUISE

During the forenoon of the following day we dropped anchor opposite thewater-front of Mr. Pulitzer's Bar Harbor estate. The house was situatedright on the rocky foreshore, and was backed by extensive grounds whichcompletely cut it off from the noise of the traffic on the main road.

By means of a flight of granite steps, leading down from a lawn laidalong the whole of the house-front, within containing walls, access washad to a pier to the end of which was attached a floating pontoonaffording an easy means of boarding the yacht's boats or the launcheswhich were kept at Chatwold for use when the house was occupied.

Chatwold was a big, rambling place, which had been added to from time totime until it was capable of accommodating about twenty people inaddition to J. P., whose quarters were in a large granite structure,specially designed with a view to securing complete quietness. Thisbuilding was in the form of a tower about forty feet square and fourstories high. On the ground floor was a magnificent room, occupying thewhole length of the tower and two-thirds of its breadth, which served asa library and dining-room for J. P. On the side facing the sea there wasa large verandah where Mr. Pulitzer took his breakfast and where he sata great deal during the day when he was transacting business or beingread to.

The whole of the basem*nt of the tower was taken up by a swimming pooland dressing rooms. The water was pumped in from the sea and could beheated by a system of steam pipes. The upper floors of the tower weregiven over to bedrooms, for J. P., for the major-domo and for several ofthe secretaries.

Most of the servants were housed in a large building some distance fromthe main residence, and there were separate quarters for the grooms andstablemen, and for the heard gardener and his assistants.

While we were at Chatwold there was a gathering of the Pulitzer family—Mrs. Joseph Pulitzer, a cousin of Jefferson Davis and a belle ofWashington in her day, who married Mr. Pulitzer years before his successin life had been made and when the fight for his place in journalism wasstill in its early stages; Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Pulitzer and their youngson, Ralph; Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Pulitzer, Jr., Miss Edith Pulitzer, MissConstance Pulitzer and Mr. Pulitzer's youngest child, Herbert, a boy offifteen.

The presence of the family had little effect upon the routine of Mr.Pulitzer's daily life. He saw as much of his wife and children as hecould; but the intensity of his family emotions was such that they couldonly be given rein at the price of sleepless nights, savage pain, anddesperate weariness. His interest in everything concerning the familywas overwhelming, his curiosity inexhaustible. Everybody had to bedescribed over and over again, but especially young Master Ralph, abright and handsome child, born long after his grandfather had becometotally blind, and Master Herbert, of whose appearance he retained onlya memory of the dim impressions he had been able to gather years beforewhen a little sight yet remained to him.

It was at lunch and at dinner that Mr. Pulitzer saw most of the family.He almost always took his meals in the library at a table seating four;and the party usually included Mrs. Pulitzer, one of the other ladies orMaster Herbert, and a secretary. I was present at a great many of thesegatherings, partly because J. P. had gradually acquired a taste for suchhumor as I was able to contribute to the conversation, and partlybecause he relished a salad-dressing which represented my onlyaccomplishment in the gastronomic field.

A feature of the Bar Harbor life which Mr. Pulitzer enjoyed greatly andwhich he could not indulge in elsewhere were the long trips he made in abig electric launch on the sheltered waters of Frenchman's Bay. When theweather was fine these trips occupied two or three hours each day. J. P.sat in an armchair amidships, with two companions, very often his twoolder sons, to read to him or to discuss business affairs.

On the occasions when I formed one of the party I had the opportunity ofobserving that so far as the quantity and the quality of work wereconcerned it was an easier task to be one of Mr. Pulitzer's secretariesthan to be one of his sons. I have never seen men put to a more severetest of industry, concentration, and memory than were Mr. Ralph and Mr.Joseph, Jr., while they were at Bar Harbor or on the yacht.

It is a pleasure to bear witness to the affectionate solicitude, thepatience, and the good will with which they met the exacting demands oftheir father. They realized, of course, as every one who worked for J.P. realized it, that the weight of the burden he placed upon you and thestrictness of the account to which you were called were the truestmeasure of his regard.

Next to politics there was nothing which interested J. P. more thanmolding and developing the people around him; and what was no more thana strong interest when it concerned his employees became a passion whenit concerned his sons. His activities in this direction ministered aliketo his love of power and to his horror of wasted talents; they gratifiedhis ever-present desire to discover the boundaries of human characterand intellect, to explore the mazes of human temperament and emotion.

What you knew and what you were able to do, once you had reached acertain standard, became secondary in his interest to what you could bemade to know and what you could be taught to do. He was never contentthat a man should stand upon his record; growth and development were thechief aims of his discipline.

His method was well illustrated in my own case. One of his earliestinjunctions to me was that I should never introduce any subject ofconversation connected, in however remote a degree, with my travels orwith my studies in relation to the government of tropical dependencies.When, for instance, he happened to need some information about India orthe West Indies, he always directed one of the other men to find it forhim. This arrangement had, from his standpoint, the double advantage ofmaking the other man learn something of which he was ignorant, and ofleaving me free to work at something of which I was ignorant. Thus J. P.killed two intellectual birds with one stone.

It was not only in regard to mental accomplishments, however, that J. P.pursued his plan of educating everybody around him. He insisted, amongother things, that I should learn to ride, not because there was anylack of people who could ride with him, but because by means ofapplication I could add a new item to the list of things I could do.After a dozen lessons from a groom I progressed so far that, havingacquired the ability to stay more or less in the saddle while the horsetrotted, Mr. Pulitzer frequently took me riding with him.

We always rode three abreast—a groom on J. P.'s right and myself on hisleft; and conversation had to be kept up the whole time. This presentedno peculiar difficulties when the horses were walking, but when theytrotted I found it no easy task to keep my seat, to preserve the precisedistance from J. P. which saved me from touching his stirrup and yetallowed me to speak without raising my voice, and to leave enough of mymind unoccupied to remember my material and to present it withoutbetraying the discomfort of my position.

During these rides, and especially when we were walking our horses alonga quiet, shady stretch of road, J. P. sometimes became reminiscent. Onone of these occasions he told me the story of how he lost his sight. AsI wrote it down as soon as we got back to the house, I can tell italmost in his own words.

We had been discussing the possibility of his writing an autobiography,and he said, throwing his head back and smiling reflectively:

"Well, I sometimes wish it could be done. It would make an interestingbook; but I do not think I shall ever do it. My God! I work from morningto night as it is. When would I get the time?" Then suddenly changinghis mood: "It won't do any harm for you to make a few notes now andthen, and some day, perhaps, we might go through them and see if thereis anything worth preserving. Has any one ever told you how I lost mysight? No? Well, it was in November, 1887. The World had been conductinga vigorous campaign against municipal corruption in New York—a campaignwhich ended in the arrest of a financier who had bought the votes ofaldermen in order to get a street railroad franchise."

At this point he paused. His jaws set, and his expression became stern,almost fierce, as he added: "The man died in jail of a broken heart, andI .. and I …" He took a deep breath and continued as though he werereciting an experience which he had heard related of some stranger.

"I was, of course, violently attacked; and it was a period of terriblestrain for me. What with anxiety and overwork I began to suffer frominsomnia, and that soon produced a bad condition of my nerves. Onemorning I went down to The World and called for the editorials whichwere ready for me to go over. I always read every line of editorialcopy. When I picked up the sheets I was astonished to find that I couldhardly see the writing, let alone read it. I thought it was probably dueto indigestion or to some other temporary cause, and said nothing aboutit. The next morning on my way downtown I called in at an oculist's. Heexamined my eyes and then told me to go home and remain in bed in adarkened room for six weeks. At the end of that time he examined meagain, said that I had ruptured a blood vessel in one of my eyes, andordered me to stop work entirely and to take six months' rest inCalifornia.

"That was the beginning of the end. Whatever my trouble had been atfirst, it developed into separation of the retina in both eyes. From theday on which I first consulted the oculist up to the present time, abouttwenty-four years, I have only been three times in The World building.Most people think I'm dead, or living in Europe in complete retirement.Now go on and give me the morning's news. I've had practically nothing,so you can just run over it briefly, item by item."

On another occasion he told me an amusing story of an experience he hadhad out in Missouri just after the end of the Civil War. He had spentsome weeks riding from county-seat to county-seat securing registrationfor a deed making title for a railroad. One evening he was nearlydrowned through his horse stumbling in the middle of a ford. When hedragged himself up the bank on the other side, drenched to the skin andworried by the prospect of having to catch his mount, which had startedoff on a cross-country gallop, he saw an elderly farmer sitting on atree stump, and watching him with intense interest and perfectseriousness.

This man put J. P. up for the night. They got along famously for awhile, but presently all was changed.

"The first thing he did," said J. P., "was to take me to the farmhouseand hand me a tumbler three parts full of whisky. When I refused this helooked at me as though he thought I was mad. 'Yer mean ter tell me yerdon't drink?' he said. (It was one of the rare occasions when I heardMr. Pulitzer try to imitate any one's peculiarities of speech.) When Itold him no, I didn't, he said nothing, but brought me food.

"After I had eaten he pulled out a plug of tobacco, bit off a largepiece, and offered the plug to me. I thanked him, but declined. It tookhim some time to get over that, but at last he said: 'Yer mean ter tellme yer don't chew?' I said no, I didn't. He dropped the subject, and foran hour or so we talked about the war and the crops and the proposedrailroad.

"That man was a gentleman. He didn't take another drink or another chewof tobacco all that time. The only sign he gave of his embarrassment wasthat every now and then during a pause in the conversation he fell toshaking his head in a puzzled sort of way. Finally, before he went tobed, he produced a pipe, filled it, and handed the tobacco to me; but Ifailed him again, and he put his own pipe back in his pocket, firmly butsorrowfully.

"Well, my God! it was nearly half an hour before he spoke again, and Iwas beginning to think that I had really wounded his feelings bydeclining his hospitable offers, when he came over and stood in front ofme and looked down on me with an expression of profound pity. I shallnever forget his words. 'Young feller,' he said, 'you seem to be rightsmart and able for a furriner, but let me tell YOU, you'll never make asuccessful American until yer learn to drink, and chew, and smoke.'"

Chatwold being within telephone distance of New York, J. P. wasconstantly subjected to the temptation of ringing up The World in orderto discuss editorial or business matters. He yielded too often, and theadditional excitement and work incident to these conversations (whichwere always carried on through a third person) were a severe strain onhis vitality. When he was absolutely worn out he would take refuge onthe yacht and steam out to sea for the purpose of enjoying a few days ofcomparative rest.

There is a matter which I may mention in connection with J. P.'s life onthe yacht which, trivial as it seems when told at this distance of time,never failed to make a profound impression upon me. Of all the tryingmoments which were inseparable from attendance upon a blind man with awill of iron and a nervous system of gossamer, no moment was quite sofull of uneasiness as that in which J. P. used the gangway in boardingor in leaving the yacht.

Take the case of his going ashore. The yacht lies at anchor in a gentleswell; the launch comes up to the gangway; two or three men with boat-hooks occupy themselves in trying to keep it steady. First over the sidegoes Dunningham, backward, then Mr. Pulitzer facing forward, one hand onthe gang-rail, the other on Dunningham's shoulder; then an officer andone of the secretaries, close behind J. P. and ready to clutch him if heslipped.

Dunningham reaches the grating at the foot of the gangway, then J. P.,then there is a pause while the latter is placed in the exact positionwhere one step forward will carry him into the launch, where the officerin charge is ready to receive him.

In the meantime the launch is bobbing up and down, its gunwale at oneinstant level with the gangway-grating, at another, two or three feetbelow it. At the precise moment when the launch is almost at the top ofits rise Dunningham says: "Now, step, please, Mr. Pulitzer." But J. P.waits just long enough to allow the launch to drop a couple of feet, andthen suddenly makes up his mind and tries to step off onto nothing.Dunningham, the officer and the secretary seize him as he cries: "MyGod! What's the matter? You told me to step."

Then follows a long argument as to what Dunningham had meant preciselywhen he said "Step!" This whole process might be repeated several timesbefore he actually found himself in the launch.

The whole thing inspired me with a morbid curiosity; and whenever J. P.was going up or down the gangway I always found myself, in common, I mayadd, with a considerable proportion of the ship's company, leaning overthe side watching this nerve-racking exhibition.

I have said that it was J. P.'s custom to seek repose on the yacht whenhe was worn out with overwork; but it would be more accurate to say thatrest was the seldom realized object of these short cruises, for nothingwas more difficult for J. P. than to drop his work so long as he had avestige of strength left with which he could flog his mind into action.

Starting out with the best intentions, J. P.'s cruises of recuperationwere usually cut short by putting in to Portland, or New London, orMarblehead to get newspapers and to send telegrams summoning to theyacht one or another of the higher staff of The World.

It was, however, when we anchored, as we often did, off Greenwich,Conn., that J. P. indulged himself to his utmost capacity in conferenceswith editors and business managers of The World and with one or twooutsiders. We would drop anchor in the afternoon, pick up a visitor,cruise in the Sound for a night and a morning, drop anchor again, sendthe visitor ashore, and pick up another.

Toward the latter part of September, 1911, J. P. left the yacht andmoved into his town house in East 73d Street. It was a large andbeautifully designed mansion, differing in three particulars from theordinary run of residences which have been built, furnished, anddecorated with the utmost good taste and without regard to expense.

The room in which J. P. usually took his meals was a small butbeautifully proportioned retreat so placed that it was completelysurrounded by other rooms and had no direct contact with the outsideworld. It was in its ground plan an irregular octagon, and it drew itslight and air from a glass dome. The most striking element in thedecorations was a number of slender columns of pale-green Irish marble,which rose from the floor to the dome.

Another unusual feature of the house was a superb church organ, whichwas built into a large recess halfway up the main staircase. J. P. wasan enthusiastic lover of organ music, and heard as much of it as hecould during his brief visits to New York.

There are no doubt other houses which have an octagonal dining-room anda church organ; but no other house, I am sure, has a bedroom like thatwhich Mr. Pulitzer occupied. Although it appeared to form part of thehouse, it did not, in fact, do so. It stood upon its own foundations andwas connected with the main structure by some ingenious device whichisolated it from all vibrations originating there. It was of the mostsolid construction, and had but one window, a very large affair,consisting of three casem*nts set one inside the other and provided withheavy plate glass panels. This triple window was never opened when Mr.Pulitzer was in the room, the ventilation being secured by means of fanssituated in a long masonry shaft whose interior opening was in thechimney and whose exterior opening was far enough away to forbid thepassage of any sound from the street. At intervals inside this shaftwere placed frames with silk threads drawn across them, for the purposeof absorbing any faint vibrations which might find their way in. In thisbedroom, with its triple window and its heavy double-door closed, J. P.enjoyed as near an approach to perfect quietness as it was possible toattain in New York.

I saw very little of J. P. when he was in New York. He was much occupiedwith family affairs; he was in constant touch with the staff of TheWorld; and the deep interest he took in the prospects of thepresidential election of 1912, which was already being eagerlydiscussed, brought an unusual number of visitors to the house.

The extent of my intercourse with J. P. at this time was an occasionaldrive in Central Park, during which we talked of little else butpolitics, and on that topic of little else but Mr. Woodrow Wilson'sspeeches and plans.

It did not take very long before the hard work and the excitement of theNew York life reduced Mr. Pulitzer to a condition in which it wasimperative that he should go to sea again and abandon completely hiscontact with the daily events which stimulated rather than nourished hismental powers.

On October 20, 1911, the Liberty left New York with J. P., his youngestson, Herbert, and the usual staff. We headed south, with nothing settledas to our plans except that we might spend some time at Mr. Pulitzer'shouse on Jekyll Island, Ga., and might pass part of the winter cruisingin the West Indies.

As soon as we got settled down on board I was delighted to find that J.P. had apparently satisfied himself in regard to my qualifications andlimitations. He abandoned the searching examinations which had kept meon the rack for nearly eight months, and our relations became much moreagreeable.

Apart from bearing my share in the routine work of dealing with the newsof the day and with the current magazine literature my principal dutygradually assumed the form of furnishing humor on demand.

The easiest part of this task was that of reading humorous books to J.P. When he was in the right mood and would submit to the process, I readto him the greater part of "Dooley," of Artemus Ward, of Max Adler, andportions of W. W. Jacobs, of Lorimer's Letters of a Self-made Merchantto His Son, of Mrs. Anne Warner's Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs.Lathrop, and of some of Stockton's delightful stories. My greatesttriumph was in inducing him to forget for a while his intense aversionto slang and to listen to the shrewd and genial philosophy of GeorgeAde.

The work of the official humorist to J. P. was rendered particularlyarduous because he carried into the field of humor, absolutely unabated,his passion for facts. To most people a large part of humor consists inthe manner of presentation, in the trick of phrase, in the texture ofthe narrative. To J. P. those things meant little or nothing; whatamused him was the situation disclosed, the inherent humor of the actionor thought.

As I have said, it was not difficult to read humorous material to J. P.when he deliberately resigned himself to it. What was exceedinglydifficult was to rise to those frequent occasions when, tired, vexed andout of sorts, he suddenly interrupted your summary of a magazine articleby saying: "Stop! Stop! For God's sake! I've got a frightful headache.Now tell me some humorous stories—make me laugh."

In order to meet these urgent and embarrassing demands I ransacked the
periodical press of England and America. I procured a year's file of
Pearson's Weekly, of Tit Bits and of Life, and scores of stray copies of
Puck, Judge and Answers.

From these I cut hundreds of short humorous paragraphs, which I kept ina box in my cabin. Whenever I was summoned to attend upon J. P. I put ahandful of these clippings in my pocket. I am afraid I should makeenemies if I were to tell of the thousands of stories I had to read inorder to get the hundreds which came within range even of my modesthopes; but I may say that line for line I got more available storiesfrom the "Newspaper Waifs" on the editorial page of the New York EveningPost than from any other source.

Even after I had labored long and heroically in the vineyard ofprofessional humor, grape juice, and not wine, was the commoner productof my efforts.

It was no unusual experience that after I had told J. P. one of the besttales in my collection he would say: "Well, go on, go on, come to thepoint. For God's sake, isn't there any end to this story?"

On October 25, 1911, we put into the harbor of Charlestown, S. C. Therewas the usual business of collecting mail, newspapers, and so on, for J.P., after five days at sea, was eager to pick up the thread of currenthappenings.

On the following day Mr. Lathan, editor of the Charleston Courier,lunched on the yacht. He and Mr. Pulitzer had an animated discussionabout the possibilities of a Democratic victory in 1912. I had neverseen J. P. in a more genial mood or in higher spirits.

Whether it was due to the excitement of receiving a visitor whoseconversation was so stimulating I do not know; but on Friday, October27, J. P. was feeling so much out of sorts that he did not appear ondeck. On Saturday he remained below only because Dunningham, who alwayskept the closest watch over his health, persuaded him to have a goodrest before resuming the ordinary routine. J. P. was anxious to take upsome business matters with Thwaites, but Dunningham induced him to giveup the idea.

At three o'clock in the morning of Sunday, October 29, Dunningham cameto my cabin and, without making any explanation, said:

"Mr, Pulitzer wishes you to come and read to him."

I put on a dressing gown, gathered up half a dozen books, and in fiveminutes I was sitting by Mr. Pulitzer's bedside. He was evidentlysuffering a good deal of pain, for he turned from side to side, and onceor twice got out of bed and sat in an easy chair.

I tried several books, but finally settled down to read Macaulay's Essayon Hallam. I read steadily until about five o'clock, and J. P. listenedattentively, interrupting me from time to time with a direction to goback and read over a passage.

About half-past five he began to suffer severely, and he sent for theyacht's doctor, who did what was possible for him. At a few minutesafter six J. P. said: "Now, Mr. Ireland, you'd better go and get somesleep; we will finish that this afternoon. Good-bye, I'm much obliged toyou. Ask Mr. Mann to come to me. Go, now, and have a good rest, andforget all about me."

I slept till noon. When I came on deck I found that everything was goingon much as usual. One of the secretaries was with J. P.; the others wereat work over the day's papers.

At lunch we spoke of J. P. One man said that he seemed a little worsethan usual, another that he had seen him much worse a score of times.

Suddenly the massive door at the forward end of the saloon opened. Iturned in my seat and saw framed in the doorway the towering figure ofthe head butler. I faced his impassive glance, and received the fullshock of his calm but incredible announcement: "Mr. Pulitzer is dead."

THE END