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200 THIS DIFFICULT INDIVIDUAL<br />

Family investments in South African gold mines gave Tinkham<br />

a comfortable fortune. Ezra says that when "Tink" showed his<br />

letter of credit to the manager of an Italian bank, the man<br />

salaamed to the floor. And, to fix the situation in my mind, Ezra<br />

repeated the man's gesture of obeisance to money.<br />

At Ezra's suggestion, I went to the Harvard Club in 1952 to see<br />

"Tink". With his typical enthusiasm for a campaign, Ezra had<br />

drafted no less than three letters to "Tink", the last of which had<br />

been signed by me, in order to set up the appointment. It had<br />

been decided that I was to write Tinkham's biography, which<br />

would be one of considerable interest, and that the wealthy old<br />

bachelor should finance the enterprise. "Tink" was easily the most<br />

interesting personality at the Club, openly contemptuous of the<br />

young Harvard men who were paralyzed at the sight of him. His<br />

beard was as raffish and his eyes as bright as they must have been<br />

when Ezra first set eyes on him.<br />

We spent some pleasant hours together, but nothing came of the<br />

proposed book. Tinkham was not much interested in whether anyone<br />

knew what he had done for his country or not. He was then in<br />

his eighties, he had twenty million dollars, and he intended to live<br />

out his life as he had always lived it, enjoying it to the full.<br />

Shortly after I talked with him, he went to Europe again. In<br />

1956, he died, leaving only one survivor, a sister who was wealthier<br />

than himself, and who lived on top of a mountain in North<br />

Carolina. His money went to a children's home in Boston.<br />

Pound's visit to America in 1939 was concluded by an evening<br />

at the Petitpas, in New York City, in homage to the late John<br />

Butler Yeats, who had spent his declining years at the boarding<br />

house of the Petitpas Sisters. This delightful restaurant was later<br />

operated by their younger brother, Nicholas Petitpas, and it continued<br />

to be a gathering place for artists and writers until 1954,<br />

when Nicholas retired, and the place was closed.

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