Page turned quickly to the young American.

"Hoover, you're It!"

Mr. Hoover made no reply; he neither accepted nor rejected the proposal.
He merely glanced at the clock, then got up and silently left the room.
In a few minutes he returned and entered again into the discussion.

"Hoover, why did you get up and leave us so abruptly?" asked Page, a
little puzzled over this behaviour.

"I saw by the clock," came the answer--and it was a story that Page was
fond of telling, as illustrating the rapidity with which Mr. Hoover
worked--"that there was an hour left before the Exchange closed in New
York. So I went out and cabled, buying several millions of bushels of
wheat--for the Belgians, of course."

* * * * *

For what is usually known as "society" Page had little inclination. Yet
for social intercourse on a more genuine plane he had real gifts. Had he
enjoyed better health, week ends in the country would have afforded him
welcome entertainment. He also liked dinner parties but indulged in them
very moderately. He was a member of many London clubs but he seldom
visited any of them. There were a number of organizations, however,
which he regularly attended. The Society of Dilettanti, a company of
distinguished men interested in promoting the arts and improving the
public taste, which has been continuously in existence since 1736,
enrolling in each generation the greatest painters and writers of the
time, elected Page to membership. He greatly enjoyed its dinners in the
Banquet Hall of the Grafton Gallery. "Last night," he writes, describing
his initial appearance, "I attended my first Dilettanti dinner and was
inducted, much as a new Peer is inducted into the House of Lords. Lord
Mersey in the chair--in a red robe. These gay old dogs have had a fine
time of it for nearly 200 years--good wine, high food, fine
satisfaction. The oldest dining society in the Kingdom. The blue blood
old Briton has the art of enjoying himself reduced to a very fine point
indeed." Another gathering whose meetings he seldom missed was that of
the Kinsmen, an informal club of literary men who met occasionally for
food and converse in the Trocadero Restaurant. Here Page would meet such
congenial souls as Sir James Barrie and Sir Arthur Pinero, all of whom
retain lively memories of Page at these gatherings. "He was one of the
most lovable characters I have ever had the good fortune to encounter,"
says Sir Arthur Pin