One movement was played too loud, another too fast; in one the brass had drowned a delightful passage for the violas, which he had heard and admired the year before in Vienna; in another the brasses had been subdued to a point where the theme lost its distinction.

It was his habit to beat time with one hand and to sway his head gently backward and forward when he heard a slow, familiar melody.  When something very stirring was played, the Rakoczy March, for instance, or the overture to Die Meistersinger, he would mark the down beat with his clenched fist, and throw his head back as if he were going to shout.

I was tempted at first to believe that, in the concert room, when one of his favorite pieces was being played, and his hand rose and fell in exact accord with the conductor’s baton, or when, with his head in the air and his mouth half open, he thumped his knee at the beginning of each bar, he was absorbed in the music to the exclusion of all his worries, perplexities, and suffering.

But, after he had once or twice turned to me in a flash as the last note of a symphony lingered before the outburst of applause and asked, “Did you remember to tell Dunningham to have dinner served a quarter of an hour later this evening?” or “Did Thwaites say anything to you about when he expected those cables from New York?”—­I learned that even at such times J. P. never lost the thread of his existence, never freed himself from the slavery of his affairs.

Twice during the ten days immediately preceding our long promised cruise in the Mediterranean we made short trips on the yacht.  We went to bed some nights with all our plans apparently settled for a week ahead.  At eight o’clock the next morning Dunningham would bring J. P. down to breakfast and then announce that everybody was to be on board the yacht by midday, as J. P. had slept badly and felt the need of sea air and the complete quiet which could be had only on board the Liberty.

There would be a great packing of trunks, not only those devoted to the personal belongings of the staff, but trunks for newspaper files, encyclopedias, magazines, novels, histories, correspondence, and so on.

The chef and his assistants, the butler and his assistants, the major domo, and the secretaries would leave the villa in a string of carriages, followed by cartloads of baggage, and install themselves on the yacht.

Or the cause of our sudden departure might be that Mr. Pulitzer was feeling nervous and out of sorts and was expecting important letters or cables which were sure to excite him and make him worse.  On such occasions Dunningham, who was one of the few people who had any influence whatever over Mr. Pulitzer, would urge an instant flight on the yacht as the only means of safeguarding J. P.’s health.  He knew that if we stayed ashore no power on earth could prevent Mr. Pulitzer from reading his cables and letters when they arrived.  Once out at sea we were completely cut off from communication with the shore, for we had no wireless apparatus, and Mr. Pulitzer would settle down and get some rest.