largely his own master, in a big, roomy house which was almost
constantly filled with the most charming and cultivated
people. There my uncle and Richard, practically of about the
same age so far as their viewpoint of life was concerned, kept
open house, and if it had not been for the occasional qualms
his innate hatred of mathematics caused him, I think my
brother would have been completely happy. Even studies no
longer worried him particularly and he at once started in to
make friendships, many of which lasted throughout his life.
As is usual with young men of seventeen, most of these men and
women friends were several times Richard's age, but at the
period Richard was a particularly precocious and amusing youth
and a difference of a few decades made but little
difference--certainly not to Richard. Finley Peter Dunne once
wrote of my brother that he "probably knew more waiters,
generals, actors, and princes than any man
who lived," and I think it was during the first year of his
life at Bethlehem that he began the foundation for the
remarkable collection of friends, both as to numbers and
variety, of which he died possessed. Although a "prep," he
made many friends among the undergraduates of Lehigh. He made
friends with the friends of his uncle and many friends in both
of the Bethlehems of which his uncle had probably never heard.
Even at that early age he counted among his intimates William
W. Thurston, who was president of the Bethlehem Iron Company,
and J. Davis Brodhead, one of Pennsylvania's most conspicuous
Democratic congressmen and attorneys. Those who knew him at
that time can easily understand why Richard attracted men and
women so much older than himself. He was brimming over with
physical health and animal spirits and took the keenest