His incompetence--real or pretended--in many directions was one of the most delightful things about him. Even in the commonest transactions of life he was rather helpless--the sort of person one instinctively assists and protects. His deficiencies of orientation were a joke among his friends, and though he insisted that he couldn’t find his way anywhere, I’m disposed to think that this was part of the make-believe in which he delighted. When he intrusted himself to another’s leading he was always pleased if the guide proved as incapable as himself. Lockerbie Street is a little hard to find, even for lifelong Indianapolitans, and for a caller to confess his difficulties in reaching it was sure to add to the warmth of his welcome. Riley had no patience for research, and cheerfully turned over to friends his inquiries of every sort. Indeed he committed to others with comical light-heartedness all matters likely to prove vexatious or disagreeable. He was chronically in search of something that might or might not exist. He complained for years of the loss of a trunk containing letters from Longfellow, Mark Twain, and others, though his ideas as to its genesis and subsequent history were altogether hazy. He was a past master of the art of postponement, but when anything struck him as urgent he found no peace until he had disposed of it. He once summoned two friends, at what was usually for him a forbidden hour of the morning, to repair forthwith to the photographer’s, that the three might have their pictures taken, his excuse being that one or another might die suddenly, leaving the desired “group” unrealized--a permanent sorrow to the survivors. His portrait by Sargent shows him at his happiest, but for some reason he never appeared to care for it greatly. There was, I believe, some vague feeling on his part that one of the hands was imperfect--a little too sketchy, perhaps. He would speak cordially of Sargent and describe his method of work with characteristic attention to detail; but when his opinion of the portrait was solicited, he would answer evasively or change the subject.