The same problem presented itself from a different direction.  Often, Mr. Pulitzer would take out of his pocket a bundle of papers—­newspaper clippings, letters, statistical reports, and memoranda of various kinds.  Handing them to his companion he would say: 

“Look through these and see if there is a letter with the London post mark, and a sheet of blue paper with some figures on it.”

You could never tell what was behind these inquiries.  Sometimes he was content to know that the papers were there, sometimes he asked you to read them, and as he might very well have them read to him by several people during the day he had a perfect check on all printed or written matter once it was in his hands.

In addition to all this his exquisite sense of hearing enabled him to detect the slightest variation in your tone of voice.  If you hesitated or betrayed the least uneasiness his suspicions were at once aroused and he took steps to verify from other sources any statement you made under such circumstances.

It will be readily understood that with his keen and analytic mind Mr. Pulitzer very soon discovered exactly what kind of work was best suited to the capacities of each of his secretaries.  Thus to Mr. Paterson was assigned the reading of history and biography, to Mr. Pollard, a Harvard man and the only American on the personal staff during my time, novels and plays in French and English, to Herr Mann German literature of all kinds.  Thwaites was chiefly occupied with Mr. Pulitzer’s correspondence, and Craven with the yacht accounts, though they, as well as myself, had roving commissions covering the periodical literature of France, Germany, England, and America.

This division of our reading was by no means rigid; it represented Mr. Pulitzer’s view of our respective spheres of greatest utility; but it was often disturbed by one or another of us going on sick leave or falling a victim to the weather when we were at sea.

Subject to such chances Pollard always read to Mr. Pulitzer during his breakfast hour, and Mann during his siesta, while the reading after dinner was pretty evenly divided between Pollard, Paterson, and myself.

If Mr. Pulitzer once got it into his head that a particular man was better than any one else for a particular class of work nothing could reconcile him to that man’s absence when such work was to be done.

An amusing instance of this occurred on an occasion when Pollard was sea-sick and could not read to J. P. at breakfast.  I was hurriedly summoned to take his place.  I was dumbfounded, for I had never before been called upon for this task, and Mr. Pulitzer had often held it up to me as the last test of fitness, the charter of your graduation.  I had nothing whatever prepared of the kind which J. P. required at that time, and I knew that upon the success of his breakfast might very well depend the general complexion of his whole day.