“What a pity,” he said, “that you in America have no literature that reflects the amazing energy, the humor, the raciness of your life!  I woke up last night at the hotel and heard a motor fire engine thunder by.  There’s a symbol of the extraordinary vitality of America!  My, if I could only live over here a couple of years, how I’d like to try my hand at it.  It’s a pity that no one over here is putting down the humor of your life.”

“Have you read O. Henry?” we suggested.

“Extraordinary country,” he went on.  “Somebody turned me loose on Mr. Morgan’s library in New York.  There was a librarian there, but I didn’t let her bother me.  I wanted to see that manuscript of ‘Endymion’ they have there.  I supposed they would take me up to a glass case and let me gaze at it.  Not at all.  They put it right in my hands and I spent three quarters of an hour over it.  Wonderful stuff.  You know, the first edition of my book is selling at a double premium in London.  It’s been out only eighteen months.”

“How do you fellows get away with it?” we asked humbly.

“I hope Pond isn’t going to book me up for too many lectures,” he said.  “I’ve got to get back to England in the spring.  There’s a painter over there waiting to do my portrait.  But there are so many places I’ve got to lecture—­everybody seems to want to hear about the young English poets.”

“I hear Philip Gibbs is just arriving in New York,” we said.

“Is that so?  Dear me, he’ll quite take the wind out of my sails, won’t he?  Nice chap, Gibbs.  He sent me an awfully cheery note when I went out to the front as a war correspondent.  Said he liked my stuff about the sodgers.  He’ll make a pot of money over here, won’t he?”

We skipped across City Hall Square abreast of some trolley cars.

“I say, these trams keep one moving, don’t they?” he said.  “You know, I was tremendously bucked by that department store you took me to see.  That’s the sort of place one has to go to see the real art of America.  Those paintings in there, by the elevators, they were done by a young English girl.  Friend of mine—­in fact, she did the pictures for my first book.  Pity you have so few poets over here.  You mustn’t make me lose my train; I’ve got a date with Vachel Lindsay and Edgar Lee Masters in New York to-night.  Vachel’s an amusing bird.  I must get him over to England and get him started.  I’ve written to Edmund Gosse about him, and I’m going to write again.  What a pity Irvin Cobb doesn’t write poetry!  He’s a great writer.  What vivacity, what a rich vocabulary!”

“Have you read Mark Twain?” we quavered.

“Oh, Mark’s grand when he’s serious; but when he tries to be funny, you know, it’s too obvious.  I can always see him feeling for the joke.  No, it doesn’t come off.  You know an artist simply doesn’t exist for me unless he has something to say.  That’s what makes me so annoyed with R.L.S.  In ‘Weir of Hermiston’ and the ‘New Arabian Nights’ he really had something to say; the rest of the time he was playing the fool on some one else’s instrument.  You know style isn’t something you can borrow from some one else; it’s the unconscious revelation of a man’s own personality.”