There were few things which Mr. Pulitzer enjoyed more than having a face
described to him, whether of a living person or of a portrait, and as
our table-talk was often about men and women of distinction or
notoriety, dead or living, any one of us might be called upon at any
time to portray feature by feature some person whose name had been
mentioned.
By providing ourselves with illustrated catalogues of the Royal Academy
exhibitions and of the National Portrait Gallery, and by cutting out the
portraits with which the modern publisher so lavishly decorates his
announcements, we generally managed, by pulling together, to cover the
ground pretty well. I have sat through a meal during which one or
another of us furnished a microscopic description of the faces of Warren
Hastings, Lord Clive, President Wilson, the present King and Queen of
England, the late John W. Gates, Ignace Paderewski, and an odd dozen
current murderers, embezzlers, divorce habitues, and candidates for
political office.
The delicate enjoyment of this game was not reached, however, until, at
the following meal, one of us, who had been absent at the original
delineation, was asked to cover some of the ground that had been gone
over a few hours earlier.
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