From a soldier he had turned journalist, tramped the streets of Washington in rain and shine, living as a man lived who must.
One day his star had shot up from the nadir of obscurity, not very far, but enough to bring his versatility under the notice of the discerning Secretary of State, who, having been a friend of the father, offered the son a berth in the diplomatic corps.

A consulate in a South American republic, during a revolutionary crisis, where he had shown consummate skill in avoiding political complications (and where, by a shrewd speculation in gold, he had feathered his nest for his declining years), proved that the continual incertitude of a journalistic career is a fine basis for diplomatic work.

From South America he had gone to Calcutta, thence to Austria.
He was only twenty-nine, which age in some is youth.

He possessed an old man's wisdom and a boy's exuberance of spirits.

He laughed whenever he could; to him life was a panorama of vivid pictures, the world a vast theater to which somehow he had gained admission.