tragic in it. But not to Peter. He was all laughter, all
but apoplectic gayety. "Oh, by George!" he choked. "This is too much!
Oh, ho! This is great! his poor heiress! And he came back! Har! Har!
Har!"

"Peter, you dog," I said, "aren't you ashamed of yourself, to rub it in
this way?"

"Not a bit, not a bit!" he insisted most enthusiastically. "Do him good.
Why shouldn't he suffer? He'll get over it. He's always bluffing about
his heiresses. Now he's lost a real one. Har! Har! Har!" and he fairly
choked, and for days and weeks and months he laughed, but he never told.
He merely chortled at his desk, and if any one asked him what he was
laughing about, even Dick, he would reply, "Oh, something--a joke I
played on a fellow once."

If Dick ever guessed he never indicated as much. But that lost romance!
That faded dream!

Not so long after this, the following winter, I left St. Louis and did
not see Peter for several years, during which time I drifted through
various cities to New York. We kept up a more or less desultory
correspondence which resulted eventually in his contributing to a paper
of which I had charge in New York, and later, in part at least I am
sure, in his coming there. I noticed one thing, that although Peter had
no fixed idea as to what he wished to be--being able to draw, write,
engrave, carve and what not--he was in no way troubled about it. "I
don't see just what it is that I am to do best," he said to me once. "It
may be that I will wind up as a painter or writer or collector--I can't
tell yet. I want to study, and meantime I'm making a living--that's all
I want now. I want to live, and I am living, in my way."

Some men are masters of cities, or perhaps better, of all the elements
which enter into the making of them, and Peter was one. I think
sometimes that he was born a writer of great force and charm, only as
yet he had not found himself. I have known many writers, many geniuses
even, but not one his superior in intellect and romantic response to
life. He was a poet, thinker, artist, philosopher and master of prose,
as a posthumous volume ("Wolf, the Autobiography of a Cave Dweller")
amply proves, but he was not ready then to fully express himself, and it
troubled him not at all. He loved life's every facet, was gay and
helpful to himself and others, and yet always with an eye for the
undercurrent of human misery, error and tragedy as well as comedy.
Immediately upon coming to New York he beg