n, eight, nine, ten times. We did not eat until
we reached the Metropole, and it was ten-thirty when we reached it! The
handshakes, the road stories--"This is my brother Theodore. He writes;
he's a newspaper man." The roars of laughter, the drinks! "Ah, my boy,
that's good, but let me tell you one--one that I heard out in Louisville
the other day." A seedy, shabby ne'er-do-well of a song-writer maybe
stopping the successful author in the midst of a tale to borrow a
dollar. Another actor, shabby and distrait, reciting the sad tale of a
year's misfortunes. Everywhere my dear brother was called to, slapped on
the back, chuckled with. He was successful. One of his best songs was
the rage, he had an interest in a going musical concern, he could confer
benefits, favors.

Ah, me! Ah, me! That one could be so great, and that it should not last
for ever and for ever!

Another of his outstanding characteristics was his love of women, a
really amusing and at times ridiculous quality. He was always sighing
over the beauty, innocence, sweetness, this and that, of young
maidenhood in his songs, but in real life he seemed to desire and
attract quite a different type--the young and beautiful, it is true, but
also the old, the homely and the somewhat savage--a catholicity of taste
I could never quite stomach. It was "Paul dearest" here and "Paul
dearest" there, especially in his work in connection with the
music-house and the stage. In the former, popular ballad singers of
both sexes, some of the women most attractive and willful, were most
numerous, coming in daily from all parts of the world apparently to find
songs which they could sing on the American or even the English stage.
And it was a part of his duty, as a member of the firm and the one who
principally "handled" the so-called professional inquirers, to meet them
and see that they were shown what the catalogue contained. Occasionally
there was an aspiring female song-writer, often mere women visitors.

Regardless, however, of whether they were young, old, attractive or
repulsive, male or female, I never knew any one whose manner was more
uniformly winsome or who seemed so easily to disarm or relax an
indifferent or irritated mood. He was positive sunshine, the same in
quality as that of a bright spring morning. His blue eyes focused
mellowly, his lips were tendrilled with smiles. He had a brisk, quick
manner, always somehow suggestive of my mother, who was never brisk.

An