Finally, I consulted Dunningham, and was informed by him, to my great surprise, that I was doing very well and that Mr. Pulitzer was pleased with me. This information cleared the ground in front of me, and that afternoon when I was called to walk with Mr. Pulitzer I decided to put out a danger signal if I was hard pressed. Everything favored such a course. J. P. had enjoyed a good siesta and was feeling unusually well; if, therefore, he was very disagreeable I would know that it was from design and not from an attack of nerves. Furthermore, he selected a subject of conversation in regard to which I was as well, if not better, informed than he was--a question relating to British Colonial policy. The moment I began to speak I saw that his object was to drive me to the wall. He flatly contradicted me again and again, insinuated that I had never met certain statesmen whose words I repeated, and, finally, after I had concluded my arguments in support of the view I was advancing, he said in an angry tone, assumed for the occasion, of course: "Mr. Ireland, I am really distressed that we should have had this discussion. I had hoped that, with years of training and advice, I might hare been able to make something out of you; but any man who could seriously hold the opinion you have expressed, and could attempt to justify it with the mass of inaccuracies and absurdities that you have given me, is simply a damned fool." "I am sorry you said that, Mr. Pulitzer," I replied in a very serious voice. "Why, for God's sake, you don't mind my calling you a damned fool, do you?" "Not in the least, sir. But when you call me a damned fool you shatter an ideal I held about you." "What's that? An ideal about me? What do you mean?" "Well, sir, years before I met you I had heard that if there was one thing above all others which distinguished you from all other journalists it was that you had the keenest nose for news of any man living." "What has that to do with my calling you a damned fool?" "Simply this, that the fact that I'm a damned fool hasn't been news to me any time during the past twenty years." He saw the point at once, laughed heartily and, putting an arm round my shoulders, as was his habit with all of us when he wished to show a friendly feeling or take the edge off a severe rebuke, said: "Now, boy, you're making fun of me, and you must not make fun of a poor old blind man. Now, then, I take it all back; I shouldn't have called you a damned fool." It was from this moment that my relations with Mr. Pulitzer began to improve. A few days after the incident which I have just related we dropped anchor in the Bay of Naples, and Mr. Pulitzer announced his intention of sailing for New York by a White Star boat the following afternoon. He asked me to go with him; and I accepted this invitation as the sign that my period of probation was over.