The rest was easy. He learned to speak and write English, was transferred to the paper of which Hutchins was the head, and before he was five-and-twenty became a local figure.
When he turned up in New York with an offer to purchase the World we met as old friends. During the interval between 1872 and 1883 we had had a runabout in Europe and I was able to render him assistance in the purchase proceeding he was having with Gould. When this was completed he said to me: "You are at entire leisure; you are worse than that, you are wasting your time about the clubs and watering places, doing no good for yourself, or anybody else. I must first devote myself to the reorganization of the business end of it. Here is a blank check. Fill it for whatever amount you please and it will be honored. I want you to go upstairs and organize my editorial force for me."
Indignantly I replied: "Go to the devil--you have not money enough--there is not money enough in the universe--to buy an hour of my season's loaf."
A year later I found him occupying with his family a splendid mansion up the Hudson, with a great stable of carriages and horses, living like a country gentleman, going to the World office about time for luncheon and coming away in the early afternoon. I passed a week-end with him. To me it seemed the precursor of ruin. His second payment was yet to be made. Had I been in his place I would have been taking my meals in an adjacent hotel, sleeping on a cot in one of the editorial rooms and working fifteen hours out of the twenty-four. To me it seemed dollars to doughnuts that he would break down and go to smash. But he did not--another case of destiny.
I was abiding with my family at Monte Carlo, when in his floating palace, the Liberty, he came into the harbor of Mentone. Then he bought a shore palace at Cap Martin. That season, and the next two or three seasons, we made voyages together from one end to the other of the Mediterranean, visiting the islands, especially Corsica and Elba, shrines of Napoleon whom he greatly admired.
He was a model host. He had surrounded himself with every luxury, including some agreeable retainers, and lived like a prince aboard. His blindness had already overtaken him. Other physical ailments assailed him. But no word of complaint escaped his lips and he rarely failed to sit at the head of his table. It was both splendid and pitiful.