Three Friends 141 



the wing to every chance to get one sitting, and we were 

 both pretty good wing shots. 



John PhiUips had a keen and extraordinarily versatile 

 mind. He was a learned gentleman in every sense of the 

 word. Trained as a doctor, he knew that his heart was un- 

 trustworthy but made up his mind to continue to live as 

 he always had, and he died in the woods while grouse 

 shooting on A^onday, November 14, 1938. His dog had 

 pointed and his gun was cocked when he fell. He went 

 exactly as he would have wanted to go. His family asked 

 me to write a few lines for the Boston Transcript. I called 

 up the editor's office and found that I had but a few mo- 

 ments to say what I could think of before the forms were 

 closed. Under the stress of the deepest emotion I wrote 

 these lines: — 



Yesterday afternoon my wife and I went to see a 

 picture taken in the Belgian Congo. It was beautifully 

 done but, as I sat, I kept thinking to myself how dif- 

 ferent it was from John Phillips's story of his visit to 

 the pygmies. In his story there were no fanfaronade, 

 no hooey, no hardships, no dangers passed, and yet I 

 saw in the picture one little man tapping his drum 

 who, I feel quite sure, was the same one whose funny 

 little face John and I had often laughed at when 

 thumbing over his albums. 



When I came home and unlocked the front door, 

 my daughter Mary stood in the hall and her voice 

 cracked as she said to me, "Dr. Phillips died this after- 

 noon in New Hampshire while out gunning with 

 Wayne Colby." 



