An Adventure With A Genius | Page 4

writings."
Thus ended my interview with Mr. James M. Tuohy, the London correspondent 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 an hour I rambled along on the subject of my American experiences. I do not know to this day what sort of an impression I created upon this gentleman, but I felt at the time that it ought to have been a favorable one.
We had many friends in common; I had recently been offered a lectureship in the university from which he had graduated; some of my books had been published in America by firms in whose standing he had confidence; I paraded a slight acquaintance with three Presidents of the United States, and produced from my pocketbook letters from two of them; we found that we were both respectful admirers of a charming lady who had recently undergone a surgical operation; he had been a guest at my club in Boston, I had been a guest at his club in New York. When I left him I thought poorly of the chances of the remnant of the six hundred.
Some weeks passed and I heard nothing more of the matter. During this time I had leisure to think over what I had heard from time to time about Joseph Pulitzer, and to speculate, with the aid of some imaginative friends, upon the probable advantages and disadvantages of the position for which I was a candidate.
Gathered together, my second-hand impressions of Joseph Pulitzer made little more than a hazy outline. I had heard or read that he had landed in New York in the early sixties, a penniless youth unable to speak a word of English; that after a remarkable series of adventures he had become a newspaper proprietor and, later, a millionaire; that he had been stricken blind at the height of his career; that his friends and his enemies agreed in describing him as a man of extraordinary ability and of remarkable character; that he had been victorious in a bitter controversy with President Roosevelt; that one of the Rothschilds had remarked that if Joseph Pulitzer had not lost his eyesight and his health he, Pulitzer, would have collected into his hands all the money there was; that he was the subject of one of the noblest portraits created by the genius of John Sargent; and that he spent most of his time on board a magnificent yacht, surrounded by a staff of six secretaries.
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 life would be like in close personal contact with such a man.
The general opinion of my friends was that life with Mr. Pulitzer would be one long succession of happy, care-free days spent along the languorous shores of the Mediterranean--days of which perhaps two hours would be devoted to light conversation with my interesting host, and the remainder of my waking moments to the gaities of Monte Carlo, to rambles on the picturesque hillsides of Rapallo and Bordighera, or to the genial companionship of my fellow-secretaries under the snowy awnings of the yacht.
We argued the matter out to our entire satisfaction. Mr. Pulitzer, in addition to being blind, was a chronic invalid, requiring a great deal of sleep and repose. He could hardly be expected to occupy more than twelve hours a day with his secretaries. That worked out at two hours apiece, or, if the division was made by days, about one day a week to each secretary.
The yacht, I had been given to understand, cruised for about eight months in the year over a course bounded by Algiers and the Piraeus, by Mentone and Alexandria, with visits to the ports of Italy, Sicily, Corsica, and Crete. The least imaginative of mortals could make a very fair and alluring picture of what life would be like under such circumstances. As the event turned out it was certainly not our imaginations that were at fault.
As time passed without bringing any further sign from Mr. Tuohy my hopes gradually died out, and I fixed in my mind a date upon which I would abandon all expectations of securing the appointment. Scarcely had I reached this determination when I received a telegram from Mr. Tuohy asking me to lunch with him the next day at the Cafe Royal in order to meet Mr. Ralph Pulitzer, who was passing through London on