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

At dinner that night Mr. Pulitzer devoted his whole attention to laying bare the vast areas of ignorance on the map of my information.  He carried me from country to country, from century to century, through history, art, literature, biography, economics, music, the drama, and current politics.  Whenever he hit upon some small spot where my investigations had lingered and where my memory served me he left it immediately, with the remark, “Well, I don’t care about that; that doesn’t amount to anything, anyhow.”

It was worse than useless to make any pretense of knowing things, for if you said you knew a play, for instance, J. P. would say, “Good!  Now begin at the second scene of the third act, where the curtain rises on the two conspirators in the courtyard of the hotel; just carry it along from there”—­and if you didn’t know it thoroughly you were soon in difficulties.

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

My dinner, considered as a dinner, was as great a failure as my conversation, considered as an exhibition of learning.  I got no more than a hasty mouthful now and again, and got that only through a device often resorted to by the secretaries under such circumstances, but which seldom met with much success.

J. P. himself had to eat, and from time to time the butler, who always stood behind J. P.’s chair, and attended to him only, would take advantage of an instant’s pause in the conversation to say, “Your fish is getting cold, sir.”

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

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