life. He was born June 5, 1885, in Toledo, Ohio. He never told his age to any one and I only discovered it after his death. If an inquiry were made concerning it, it was his custom to counter with another question: How old do you think I am? and then to add one year to the reply, thus insuring credence. So I have heard him give himself ages varying from eighteen to forty-five, but he was only thirty-four when he died in 1919.
His father was cashier in a bank, a straight, serious, plain sort of man, of the kind that is a prop to a small town, looked up to and respected, asked whether an election will have an effect on stock values, and whether it is better to illuminate one's house with gas or electricity. His mother was a small woman with a pleasant face and red hair which she parted in the centre. Kindliness she occasionally carried almost to the point of silliness. She was somewhat garrulous, too, but she was wellread, not at all ignorant, and at surprising moments gave evidence of possessing a small stock of common sense. I think Peter inherited a good deal of his quality from his mother, who was a Fotheringay of West Chester, Pennsylvania. I met her for the first time soon after her husband's death. She was wearing, in addition to a suitable mourning garment, five chains of Chinese beads and seemed moderately depressed.
Peter's resemblance to Buridan's donkey (it will be remembered that the poor beast wavered between
