rious lands that pervaded him. One never knew when he was coming to
New York and one never knew how long he was going to stay; he just
appeared, was very busy with mining companies for a while, sat about
clubs in the late afternoon, and then, one day, he was gone.

Sometimes he came twice in a year; oftener, not for two or three years
at a stretch. When he did come we gave him a dinner--that is, Jarrick,
Hill, and myself. And it was rather an occasion. We would procure a
table in the gayest restaurant we could find, near, but not too near,
the music--Hill it was who first suggested this as a dramatic bit of
incongruity between Hardy and the frequenters of Broadway--and the
most exotic food obtainable, for a good part of his time Hardy, we
knew, lived upon camp fare. Then we would try to make him tell about
his experiences. Usually he wouldn't. Impersonally, he was entertaining
about South Africa, about the Caucasus, about Alaska, Mexico, anywhere
you care to think; but concretely he might have been an illustrated
lecture for all he mentioned himself. He was passionately fond of
abstract argument. "Y' see," he would explain, "I don't get half as
much of this sort of thing as I want. Of course, one does run across
remarkable people--now, I met a cow-puncher once who knew Keats by
heart--but as a rule I deal only with material things, mines and
prospects and assays and that sort of thing." Poor chap! I wonder
if he thought that we, with our brokering and our writing and our
lawyering, dealt much with ideas! I remember one night when we sat
up until three discussing the philosophy of prohibition over three
bottles of port. I wonder how many other men have done the same thing!

But five years ago--no, it was six--Hardy really told us a real
story about himself. Necessarily the occasion is memorable in our
recollections. We had dined at Lamb's, and the place was practically
empty, for it was long after the theatre hour--only a drowsy waiter
here and there, and away over in one corner a young couple who, I
suppose, imagined themselves in love. Fancy being in love at Lamb's!
We had been discussing, of all things in the world, bravery and
conscience and cowardice and original sin, and that sort of business,
and there was no question about it that Hardy was enjoying himself
hugely. He was leaning upon the table, a coffee-cup between his relaxed
brown hands, listening with an eagerness highly complimentary to the
banal remarks we