He was of the early English who came to New York, and was a novelty of interest, with his background of Manor House and village and old family name.

He was very much talked of at vivacious ladies' luncheon parties, he was very much talked to at equally vivacious afternoon teas.

At dinner parties he was furtively watched a good deal, but after dinner when he sat with the men over their wine, he was not popular.

He was not perhaps exactly disliked, but men whose chief interest at that period lay in stocks and railroads, did not find conversation easy with a man whose sole occupation had been the shooting of birds and the hunting of foxes, when he was not absolutely loitering about London, with his time on his hands.

The stories he told--and they were few--were chiefly anecdotes whose points gained their humour by the fact that a man was a comically bad shot or bad rider and either peppered a gamekeeper or was thrown into a ditch when his horse went over a hedge, and such relations did not increase in the poignancy of their interest by being filtered through brains accustomed to applying their powers to problems of speculation and commerce.