When we recall the story of Hay’s life—one weird tragedy after another, from the murder of Lincoln to the murder of McKinley, including the tragic end of two members of his immediate family—there rises in spite of the grandeur that pursued him a single exclamation: “The pity of it!” This is accentuated by Henry Adams’ Education. Yet the silent courage with which Hay met disaster after disaster must increase both the sympathy and the respect of those who peruse the melancholy pages of that vivid narrative. Toward the end, meeting him on a public occasion, I said: “You work too hard—you are not looking well.” “I am dying,” said he. “Yes,” I replied in the way of banter, “you are dying of fame and fortune.” But I went no further. He was in no mood for the old verbal horseplay. He looked wan and wizened. Yet there were still several years before him. When he came from Mannheim to Paris it was clear that the end was nigh. I did not see him—he was too ill to see any one—but Frank Mason kept me advised from day to day, and when, a month or two later, having reached home, the news came to us that he was dead we were nowise surprised, and almost consoled by the thought that rest had come at last. Frank Mason and his wife—“the Masons,” they were commonly called, for Mrs. Mason made a wondrous second to her husband—were from Cleveland, Ohio, she a daughter of Judge Birchard—Jennie Birchard—he a rising young journalist caught in the late seventies by the glitter of a foreign appointment. They ran the gamut of the consular service, beginning with Basel and Marseilles and ending with Frankfurt, Berlin and Paris. Wherever they were their house was a very home—a kind of Yankee shrine—of visiting Americans and militant Americanism. Years before he was made consul general—in point of fact when he was plain consul at Marseilles—he ran over to Paris for a lark. One day he said to me, “A rich old hayseed uncle of mine has come to town. He has money to burn and he wants to meet you. I have arranged for us to dine with him at the Anglaise to-night and we are to order the dinner—carte blanche.” The rich old uncle to whom I was presented did not have the appearance of a hayseed. On the contrary he was a most distinguished-looking old gentleman. The dinner we ordered was “stunning”—especially the wines. When the bill was presented our host scanned it carefully, scrutinizing each item and making his own addition, altogether “like a thoroughbred.” Frank and I watched him not without a bit of anxiety mixed with contrition. When he had paid the score he said with a smile: “That was rather a steep bill, but we have had rather a good dinner, and now, if you boys know of as good a dance hall we’ll go there and I’ll buy the outfit.” II