J. P.'s questions covered names, places, dates, motives, the chain of causation, what you said, what you did, what you felt, what you thought, the reasons why you felt, thought, acted as you did, the reasons why your thought and action had not been such-and-such, your opinion of your own conduct, in looking back upon the episode, your opinion of the thoughts, actions and feelings of everybody else concerned, your conjectures as to THEIR motives, what you would do if you were again faced with the same problem, why you would do it, why you had not done it on the previous occasion.
Starting at any point in your career Mr. Pulitzer worked backward and forward until all that you had ever thought or done, from your earliest recollection down to the present moment, had been disclosed to him so far as he was interested to know it, and your memory served you.
This process varied in length according to the nature of the experiences of the person subjected to it, and to the precise quality of Mr. Pulitzer's interest in him. In my own case it lasted about three months and was copiously interspersed with written statements by myself of facts about myself, opinions by myself about myself, and endless references to people I had known during the past twenty-five years.
Mr. Pulitzer's attitude toward references was the product of vast experience. He complained that scores of men had come to him with references from some of the most distinguished people living, references so glowing that one man should have been ashamed to write them and the other ashamed to receive them, references of such a character that their happy possessors might, without being guilty of immodesty, have applied for the Chief Justiceship of the United States, the Viceroyalty of India, the Archbishopric of Canterbury, the Presidency of the Royal College of Surgeons, or the Mastership of Baliol, but that the great majority of these men had turned out to be ignorant, lazy and stupid to an unbelievable degree.
When the question of my own references came up I begged in a humorous way that, having heard J. P.'s views about the value of testimonials, my friends should be spared the useless task of eulogizing me.
"No, my God!" exclaimed J. P. "None of them shall be spared. What I said about testimonials is all perfectly true; but it only serves to show what sort of person a man must be who can't even get testimonials. No, no; if a man brings references it proves nothing; but if he can't, it proves a great deal."
Our voyage to New York was marred by but one distressing feature, the behavior of two infants, one of whom cried all day and the other all night. J. P. stood it very well. I think he regarded it as one of the few necessary noises. He suffered from it, of course, but the only remark he ever made to me about it was:
"I really think that one of the most extraordinary things in the world is the amount of noise a child can make. Here we are with a sixty-mile gale blowing and some ten thousand horse-power engines working inside the ship, and yet that child can make itself heard from one end of the boat to the other. I think there must be two of them; the sound is not quite the same at night. Now, Mr. Ireland, do, just for the fun of it, find out about that. Don't let the mother know—I wouldn't like to hurt her feelings; but ask one of the stewards about it."
In due course we reached New York. The Liberty, which had crossed directly from Marseilles, met us at quarantine, and Mr. Pulitzer was transferred to her without landing. The rest of us joined the yacht the same evening. That night we sailed for Bar Harbor.