In his days of health he carried himself alertly and gave an impression of smartness. He was in all ways neat and orderly; there was no slouch about him and no Byronic affectations. He was always curious as to the origin of any garment or piece of haberdashery displayed by his intimates, but strangely secretive as to the source of his own supplies. He affected obscure tailors, probably because they were likelier to pay heed to his idiosyncrasies than more fashionable ones. He once deplored to me the lack of attention bestowed upon the waistcoat by sartorial artists. This was a garment he held of the highest importance in man’s adornment. Hopkinson Smith, he averred, was the only man he had ever seen who displayed a satisfactory taste and was capable of realizing the finest effects in this particular. He inspired affection by reason of his gentleness and inherent kindliness and sweetness. The idea that he was a convivial person, delighting in boon companions and prolonged sessions at table, has no basis in fact. He was a domestic, even a cloistral being; he disliked noise and large companies; he hated familiarity, and would quote approvingly what Lowell said somewhere about the annoyance of being clapped on the back. Riley’s best friends never laid hands on him; I have seen strangers or new acquaintances do so to their discomfiture. No background of poverty or early hardship can be provided for this “poet of the people.” His father was a lawyer, an orator well known in central Indiana, and Riley’s boyhood was spent in comfortable circumstances. The curtailment of his schooling was not enforced by necessity, but was due to his impatience of restraint and inability to adjust his own interests to the prevailing curriculum. He spent some time in his father’s office at Greenfield, reading general literature, not law, and experimenting with verse. He served an apprenticeship as a house painter, and acquired the art of “marbling” and “graining”--long-abandoned embellishments of domestic architecture. Then, with four other young men, he began touring Indiana, painting signs, and, from all accounts, adding greatly to the gaiety of life in the communities visited. To advertise their presence, Riley would recite in the market-place, or join with his comrades in giving musical entertainments. Or, pretending to be blind, he would laboriously climb up on a scaffolding and before the amazed spectators execute a sign in his best style. There was a time when he seemed anxious to forget his early experiences as a wandering sign-painter and entertainer with a patent-medicine van, but in his last years he spoke of them quite frankly.