reason, probably on account of my early admiration for Richard
and being only too willing to obey his command, I was
invariably cast for the villain in these early dramas, and the
end of the play always ended in a hand-to-hand conflict
between the hero and myself. As Richard, naturally, was the
hero and incidentally the stronger of the two, it can readily
be imagined that the fight always ended in my complete
undoing. Strangulation was the method usually employed to
finish me, and, whatever else Richard was at that tender age,
I can testify to his extraordinary ability as a choker.

But these early days in the city were not at all the happiest
days of that period in Richard's life. He took but little
interest even in the social or the athletic side of his school
life, and his failures in his studies
troubled him sorely, only I fear, however, because it troubled
his mother and father. The great day of the year to us was
the day our schools closed and we started for our summer
vacation. When Richard was less than a year old my mother and
father, who at the time was convalescing from a long illness,
had left Philadelphia on a search for a complete rest in the
country. Their travels, which it seems were undertaken in the
spirit of a voyage of discovery and adventure, finally led
them to the old Curtis House at Point Pleasant on the New
Jersey coast. But the Point Pleasant of that time had very
little in common with the present well-known summer resort.
In those days the place was reached after a long journey by
rail followed by a three hours' drive in a rickety stagecoach
over deep sandy roads, albeit the roads did lead through
silent, sweet-smelling pine forests. Point Pleasant itself