Toward the latter part of September, 1911, J. P. left the yacht and moved into his town house in East 73d Street.  It was a large and beautifully designed mansion, differing in three particulars from the ordinary run of residences which have been built, furnished, and decorated with the utmost good taste and without regard to expense.

The room in which J. P. usually took his meals was a small but beautifully proportioned retreat so placed that it was completely surrounded by other rooms and had no direct contact with the outside world.  It was in its ground plan an irregular octagon, and it drew its light and air from a glass dome.  The most striking element in the decorations was a number of slender columns of pale-green Irish marble, which rose from the floor to the dome.

Another unusual feature of the house was a superb church organ, which was built into a large recess halfway up the main staircase.  J. P. was an enthusiastic lover of organ music, and heard as much of it as he could during his brief visits to New York.

There are no doubt other houses which have an octagonal dining-room and a church organ; but no other house, I am sure, has a bedroom like that which Mr. Pulitzer occupied.  Although it appeared to form part of the house, it did not, in fact, do so.  It stood upon its own foundations and was connected with the main structure by some ingenious device which isolated it from all vibrations originating there.  It was of the most solid construction, and had but one window, a very large affair, consisting of three casements set one inside the other and provided with heavy plate glass panels.  This triple window was never opened when Mr. Pulitzer was in the room, the ventilation being secured by means of fans situated in a long masonry shaft whose interior opening was in the chimney and whose exterior opening was far enough away to forbid the passage of any sound from the street.  At intervals inside this shaft were placed frames with silk threads drawn across them, for the purpose of absorbing any faint vibrations which might find their way in.  In this bedroom, with its triple window and its heavy double-door closed, J. P. enjoyed as near an approach to perfect quietness as it was possible to attain in New York.

I saw very little of J. P. when he was in New York.  He was much occupied with family affairs; he was in constant touch with the staff of The World; and the deep interest he took in the prospects of the presidential election of 1912, which was already being eagerly discussed, brought an unusual number of visitors to the house.

The extent of my intercourse with J. P. at this time was an occasional drive in Central Park, during which we talked of little else but politics, and on that topic of little else but Mr. Woodrow Wilson’s speeches and plans.

It did not take very long before the hard work and the excitement of the New York life reduced Mr. Pulitzer to a condition in which it was imperative that he should go to sea again and abandon completely his contact with the daily events which stimulated rather than nourished his mental powers.