universe--to buy an hour of my
season's loaf."

A year later I found him occupying with his family a splendid mansion up
the Hudson, with a great stable of carriages and horses, living like a
country gentleman, going to the World office about time for luncheon and
coming away in the early afternoon. I passed a week-end with him. To me
it seemed the precursor of ruin. His second payment was yet to be made.
Had I been in his place I would have been taking my meals in an adjacent
hotel, sleeping on a cot in one of the editorial rooms and working
fifteen hours out of the twenty-four. To me it seemed dollars to
doughnuts that he would break down and go to smash. But he did
not--another case of destiny.

I was abiding with my family at Monte Carlo, when in his floating
palace, the Liberty, he came into the harbor of Mentone. Then he bought
a shore palace at Cap Martin. That season, and the next two or three
seasons, we made voyages together from one end to the other of the
Mediterranean, visiting the islands, especially Corsica and Elba,
shrines of Napoleon whom he greatly admired.

He was a model host. He had surrounded himself with every luxury,
including some agreeable retainers, and lived like a prince aboard. His
blindness had already overtaken him. Other physical ailments assailed
him. But no word of complaint escaped his lips and he rarely failed to
sit at the head of his table. It was both splendid and pitiful.

Absolute authority made Pulitzer a tyrant. He regarded his newspaper
ownership as an autocracy. There was nothing gentle in his domination,
nor, I might say, generous either. He seriously lacked the sense of
humor, and even among his familiars could never take a joke. His love
of money was by no means inordinate. He spent it freely though not
wastefully or joyously, for the possession of it rather flattered his
vanity than made occasion for pleasure. Ability of varying kinds and
degrees he had, a veritable genius for journalism and a real capacity
for affection. He held his friends at good account and liked to have
them about him. During the early days of his success he was disposed to
overindulgence, not to say conviviality. He was fond of Rhine wines and
an excellent judge of them, keeping a varied assortment always at hand.
Once, upon the Liberty, he observed that I preferred a certain vintage.
"You like this wine?" he said inquiringly. I assented, and he said, "I
have a lot of it at home, and when I g