The friendship of Dr. Walter E. Lennox Maxwell of London, with Mr. C. Arthur Preller of the same city,

was formed on shipboard during their passage from Liverpool to Boston, January 1885.

The young men did not know one another in England. At a musical entertainment in the

main saloon, devised by the passengers to while away a long winter evening, Preller and Maxwell

discovered that they had a preference for the same composers. An hour's talk on this theme

founded an intimacy between them

that had strengthened a positive friendship

before the vessel came in sight of Boston Harbor.

They put up at the Adams' house together.

It was Maxwell's first visit to America.

In free confidence with his new acquaintance, he said he was an

English baronet, but unfortunately a poor one. He could not afford to live in a style commensurate with his

rank. He had studied at Oxford, taken his degree as a medical doctor, and was resolved to earn his living.

He did not care to do so in England and had left home with the intention of beginning a practice

in Auckland, New Zealand. He had not much money with him, something over a thousand dollars.

Preller said that he too was going to Australia on a business trip,

but he must first spend a month or six weeks in this country. However, if Maxwell could improve

his seeing something of America for a short time, Preller promised to expedite his own affairs and

continue across the Pacific and his

company. This arrangement was agreed upon. Preller had been to America twice before, the first time about

four years ago. He was an agent for the house of J. H. Dixon, a large manufacturer of decorative

upholstering materials in Bradford, England.

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