King 



weight of British aristocracy ; or 

 in short anything, if you will sing 

 that little Cuban song : ' Yo me soy 

 contigo ! ' " 



We were touching sixty years old 

 when he wrote this. He was strug- 

 gling desperately under a load which 

 was sure to break him down ; and as 

 for girls, brown, black or yellow, they 

 had about as much interest for us 

 as a phonograph. If he wanted me 

 with him it was because he knew 

 that I was anything but a gay com- 

 panion, and that with me he need 

 make no effort. Yet it was instinc- 

 tive with him to call for companion- 

 ship on his own youth, and he was 

 really thinking not of me, but of the 

 pine woods of 1870; the Sierras; 

 the Rockies ; and the brown girls. 

 We both knew that it was all over ; 

 that thenceforward his energies were 

 to be thrown away ; that the particu- 

 lar stake in life for which he had 



