Upton Sinclair - The Metropolis

"Who are the other men ?" Montague asked.

"Oh, they're just little millionaires," was the reply.

The 'little millionaires" were following as a kind of body-guard; one of them, who was short and pudgy, was half running, to keep up with Waterman's heavy stride. When they came to the coat-room, they crowded the attendants away, and one helped the great man on with his coat, and another neld his hat, and another his stick, and two others tried to talk to him. And Waterman stolidly buttoned his coat, and then seized his hat and stick, and without a word to anyone, bolted through the door.

It was one of the funniest sights that Montague had ever seen in his life, and he laughed all the way into the smoking room. And, when Major Venable had settled himself in a big

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chair and bitten off the end of a cigar and lighted it, what floodgates of reminiscence were opened !

For Dan Waterman was one of the Major's own generation, and he knew all his life and his habits. Just as Montague had seen him there, so he had been always; swift, imperious, terrible, trampling over all opposition; the most powerful men in the city quailed before the glare of his eyes. In the old days Wall Street had reeled in the shock of the conflicts between him and his most powerful rival.

And the Major went on to tell about Waterman's rival, and his life. He had been the city's traction-king, old Wyman had been made by him. He was the prince among political financiers; he had ruled the Democratic party in state and nation. He would give a quarter of a million at a time to the boss of Tammany Hall, and spend a million in a single campaign; on "dough-day," when the district leaders came to get the election funds, there would be a table forty feet long completely covered with hundred-dollar bills. He would have been the richest man in America, save that he spent his money as fast as he got it. He had had the most famous racing-stable in America; and a house on Fifth Avenue that was said to be the finest Italian palace in the world. Over three millions had been spent in decorating it; all the ceilings had been brought intact from palaces abroad, which he had bought and demolished ! The Major told a story to show how such a man lost all sense of the value of money; he had once been sitting at lunch with him.

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when the editor of one of his newspapers had •come in and remarked,. "I told you we would need eight thousand dollars, and the check you sent is for ten." "I know it,'' was the smiling answer — " but somehow I thought eight seemed Jiarder to write than ten !"

"Old.Waterman's quite a spender, too^ when it comes to that," the Major went on. "He told me once that it cost him five thousand dollars a day for his ordinary expenses. And that doesn't include a million-dollar, yacht, nor even the expenses of it.

" And think of another man I know of who spent a million dollars for a granite pier, so that he could land: and see his mistress ! — It's a fact, a,s sure as God made me ! She was a welHsnown society woman, hut she was poor, and he didn't dare to make her rich for fear of the scandal. So she had to live in a miserable fifty-thousand-dollar villa; and when other people's children would, sneer at her children because they lived in a fifty-thousand-dollar villa, the answer would be,. 'But you: haven't got any' pier!' And if you don't believe that—"

But here suddenly the Major turned, and observed a boy who had brought him some cigars,^ and who was now standing near by, pretending to straighten out some newspapers upon the table. "Here, sir !" cried, the Major, *'what do you mean — listening to what I'm saying! Out of the room with you now, you rascal!"

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CHAPTER XIII

ANOTHER week-end came, and with it an invitation from the Lester Todds to visit them at their country place in New Jersey. Montague was buried in his books, but his brother routed him out with strenuous protests. His case be damned — was he going to ruin his career for one case.'' At all hazards, he must meet people — "people who counted." And the Todds were such, a big money crowd, and a power in the insurance world; if Montague were going to be an insurance lawyer, he could not possibly decline their invitation. Freddie Vandam would be a guest ^— and Montague smiled at the tidings that Betty Wyman would be there also. He had observed that his brother's week-end: visits always happened at places where Betty was, and where Betty's granddaddy was not.

So Montague's man packed his grips, and Alice's maid her trunks; and they rode with a private-car party to a remote Jersey suburb, and were whirled in an auto up a broad shell road to a palace upon the top of a mountain. Here livea the haughty Lester Todds, and scattered about on the neighbouring hills, a set of the ultra-wealthy who had withdrawn to this seclusion. They were exceedingly "classy"; they affected to regard all the Society of the

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city with scorn, and had their own all-the-year-round diversions — an open-air horse show in summer, and in the fall fox-hunting in fancy uniforms.

The Lester Todds themselves were ardent pursuers of all varieties of game, and in various clubs and private preserves they followed the seasons, from Florida and North Carolina to Ontario, with occasional side trips to Norway, and New Brunswick, and British Columbia. Here at home they had a whole mountain of virgin forest, carefully preserved; and in the Renaissance palace at the summit — which they carelessly referred to as a "lodge" — you would find such articles de vertu as a ten-thousand-dollar table with a set of two-thousand-dollar chairs, and quite ordinary-looking rugs at ten and twenty thousand dollars each.— All these prices you might ascertain without any diflSculty at all, because there were many newspaper articles describing the house to be read in an album in the hall. On Saturday afternoons Mrs. Todd welcomed the neighbours in a pastel grey reception-gown, the front of which contained a peacock embroidered in silk, with jewels in every feather, and a diamond solitaire for an eye; and in the evening there was a dance, and she appeared in a gown with several hundred diamonds sewn upon it, and received her guests upon a rug set with jewels to match.

All together, Montague judged this the'' fastest'' set he had yet encountered; they ate more and drank more and intrigued more openly. He had been slowly acquiring the special lingo of

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Society, but these people had so much more slang that he felt all lost again. A young lady who was gossiping to him about those present remarked that a certain youth was a "spasm"; and then, seeing the look of perplexity upon his face, she laughed, "I don't believe you know what I mean!" Montague replied that he had ventured to infer that she did not like him.

And then there was Mrs. Harper, who came from Chicago by way of London. Ten years ago Mrs. Harper had overwhelmed New York with the millions brought from her great department-store; and had then moved on, sigh-mg for new worlds to conquer. When she had left Chicago, her grammar had been unexceptionable ; but now that she had become a crony of the king's, she said "you ain't" and dropped all her g's; and when Montague brought down a bird at long range, she exclaimed, condescendingly, "Why, you're quite a dab at it!" He sat in the front seat of an automobile, and heard the great lady behind him referring to the sturdy Jersey farmers, whose ancestors had fought the British and Hessians all over the state, as "your peasantry."

It was an extraordinary privilege to have Mrs. Harper for a guest; "at home" she moved about in state recalling that of Queen Victoria, with flags and bunting on the way, and crowds of school children cheering. She kept up half a dozen establishments, and had a hundred thousand acres of game preserves in Scotland. She made a specialty of collecting jewels which had belonged to the romantic and picturesque queens