122 NATHANIEL SOUTHGATE SHALER 



a soldierly courage, with a gentle pale face, and a large nose 

 adorned with eye-glasses. Though soldierly in bearing, he 

 had been trained at a French military school, he seemed to 

 be physically a somewhat weak person. I was sufficiently 

 experienced not to mistake that ancient sign of danger, the 

 woman's look. He had led a strangely roving adventurous life 

 as a soldier in the Franco-Italian-Austrian War of 1859, as 

 engineer of a revolution in Mexico, and as a member of a gov- 

 ernment exploring expedition on the Pacific. He had roamed 

 about afoot in various terrestrial wilds and was seeking celes- 

 tial realms. Even then I knew something of Sir Philip and 

 fancied in my friend there was something of his famous name- 

 sake: a like interior of valor, with a like outward insufficiency 

 or what the unobservant take for such. 



One short story will tell more of Coolidge's quality than all 

 my inadequate description. I had been reading some book of 

 travel in China, and, in the manner of a youth, was airing my 

 knowledge in the talk that went round at our boarding-house 

 table. I had spoken of the northern Chinaman as a well-devel- 

 oped man, saying he would average a certain height what- 

 ever it was in the book. A chap questioned my statement. 

 Knowing Coolidge had been in China, I asked his opinion. He 

 assumed that he thought the estimate was right. The caviller 

 said, " I should like to know, sir, what foundation you have for 

 your opinion"; having for answer, "I saw a hundred of them 

 beheaded, and I measured them afterwards." I have heard 

 sundry "sockdologers," but this was the most perfect of all, 

 quite ideal in its efficiency. At the moment, and for long after- 

 ward, I supposed that the statement was an invention well con- 

 trived to silence the troublesome fellow so indeed all probably 

 took it. But thirty years afterward, on telling it at my own 

 table, as a sample of apt invention, another friend said, " That 

 statement was no invention; I saw Coolidge do it." He went 

 on to explain that they together had witnessed the execution, 

 and that when it was over Coolidge, with a curious fancy for 



