A most interesting place was St. Cecilia's. Church-going was another
of the customs of men and women which Society had taken up, like the
Opera, and made into a state function. Here was a magnificent
temple, with carved marble and rare woods, and jewels gleaming
decorously in a dim religious light. At the door of this edifice
would halt the carriages of Society, and its wives and daughters
would alight, rustling with new silk petticoats and starched and
perfumed linen, each one a picture, exquisitely gowned and bonneted
and gloved, and carrying a demure little prayer-book. Behind them
followed the patient men, all in new frock-coats and shiny silk
hats; the men of Society were always newly washed and shaved, newly
groomed and gloved, but now they seemed to be more so--they were
full of the atmosphere of Sunday. Alas for those unregenerate ones,
the infidels and the heathen who scoff in outer darkness, and know
not the delicious feeling of Sunday--the joy of being washed and
starched and perfumed, and made to be clean and comfortable and
good, after all the really dreadful wickedness of six days of
fashionable life!--And afterward the parade upon the Avenue, with
the congregations of several score additional churches, and such a
show of stylish costumes that half the city came to see!

Amid this exquisite assemblage at St. Cecilia's, the revolutionary
doctrines of the Christian religion produced neither perplexity nor
alarm. The chance investigator might have listened in dismay to
solemn pronouncements of everlasting damnation, to statements about
rich men and the eyes of needles, and the lilies of the field which
did not spin. But the congregation of St. Cecilia's understood that
these things were to be taken in a quixotic sense; sharing the view
of the French marquis that the Almighty would think twice before
damning a gentleman like him.

One had heard these phrases ever since childhood, and one accepted
them as a matter of course. After all, these doctrines had come from
the lips of a divine being, whom it would be presumptuous in a mere
mortal to attempt to imitate. Such points one could but leave to
those whose business it was to interpret them--the doctors and
dignitaries of the church; and when one met them, one's heart was
set at rest--for they were not iconoclasts and alarmists, but
gentlemen of culture and tact. The bishop who presided in this
metropolitan district was a stately personage, who moved in the best
Society and belonged to the most exclusive clubs.

The pews in St. Cecilia's were rented, and they were always in great
demand; it was one of the customs of those who hung upon the fringe
of Society to come every Sunday, and bow and smile, and hope against
hope for some chance opening. The stranger who came was dependent
upon hospitality; but there were soft-footed and tactful ushers, who
would find one a seat, if one were a presentable person. The
contingency of an unpresentable person seldom arose, for the
proletariat did not swarm at the gates of St. Cecilia's. Out of its
liberal income the church maintained a "mission" upon the East Side,
where young curates wrestled with the natural depravity of the lower
classes--meantime cultivating a soul-stirring tone, and waiting
until they should be promoted to a real church. Society was becoming
deferential to its religious guides, and would have been quite
shocked at the idea that it exerted any pressure upon them; but the
young curates were painfully aware of a process of unnatural
selection, whereby those whose manner and cut of coat were not
pleasing were left a long time in the slums.--On one occasion there
had been an amusing blunder; a beautiful new church was built at
Newport, and an eloquent young minister was installed, and all
Society attended the opening service--and sat and listened in
consternation to an arraignment of its own follies and vices! The
next Sunday, needless to say, Society was not present; and within
half a year the church was stranded, and had to be dismantled and
sold!

They had elaborate music at St. Cecilia's, so beautiful that Alice
felt uncomfortable, and thought that it was perilously "high." At
this Mrs. Winnie laughed, offering to take her to an afternoon
service around the corner, where they had a full orchestra, and a
harp, and opera music, and incense and genuflexions and
confessionals. There were people, it seemed, who like to thrill
themselves by dallying with the wickedness of "Romanism"; somewhat
as a small boy tries to see how near he can walk to the edge of a
cliff. The "father" at this church had a jewelled robe with a train
so many yards long, and which had cost some incredible number of
thousands of dollars; and every now and then he marched in a stately
procession through the aisles, so that all the spectators might have
a good look at it. There was a fierce controversy about these things
in the church, and libraries of pamphlets were written, and
intrigues and social wars were fought over them.

But Montague and Alice did not attend this service--they had
promised themselves the very plebeian diversion of a ride in the
subway; for so far they had not seen this feature of the city.
People who lived in Society saw Madison and Fifth Avenues, where
their homes were, with the churches and hotels scattered along them;
and the shopping district just below, and the theatre district at
one side, and the park to the north. Unless one went automobiling,
that was all of the city one need ever see. When visitors asked
about the Aquarium, and the Stock Exchange, and the Museum of Art,
and Tammany Hall, and Ellis Island, where the immigrants came, the
old New Yorkers would look perplexed, and say: "Dear me, do you
really want to see those tilings? Why, I have been here all my life,
and have never seen them!"

For the hordes of sightseers there had been provided a special
contrivance, a huge automobile omnibus which seated thirty or forty
people, and went from the Battery to Harlem with a young man
shouting through a megaphone a description of the sights. The
irreverent had nicknamed this the "yap-wagon"; and declared that the
company maintained a fake "opium-joint" in Chinatown, and a fake
"dive" in the Bowery, and hired tough-looking individuals to sit and
be stared at by credulous excursionists from Oklahoma and Kalamazoo.
Of course it would never have done for people who had just been
passed into Society to climb upon a "yap-wagon"; but they were
permitted to get into the subway, and were whirled with a deafening
clatter through a long tunnel of steel and stone. And then they got
out and climbed a steep hill like any common mortals, and stood and
gazed at Grant's tomb: a huge white marble edifice upon a point
overlooking the Hudson. Architecturally it was not a beautiful
structure--but one was consoled by reflecting that the hero himself
would not have cared about that. It might have been described as a
soap-box with a cheese-box on top of it; and these homely and
familiar articles were perhaps not altogether out of keeping with
the character of the humblest great man who ever lived.

The view up the river was magnificent, quite the finest which the
city had to offer; but it was ruined by a hideous gas-tank, placed
squarely in the middle of it. And this, again, was not
inappropriate--it was typical of all the ways of the city. It was a
city which had grown up by accident, with nobody to care about it or
to help it; it was huge and ungainly, crude, uncomfortable, and
grotesque. There was nowhere in it a beautiful sight upon which a
man could rest his eyes, without having them tortured by something
ugly near by. At the foot of the slope of the River Drive ran a
hideous freight-railroad; and across the river the beautiful
Palisades were being blown to pieces to make paving stone--and
meantime were covered with advertisements of land-companies. And if
there was a beautiful building, there, was sure to be a tobacco
advertisement beside it; if there was a beautiful avenue, there were
trucks and overworked horses toiling in the harness; if there was a
beautiful park, it was filled with wretched, outcast men. Nowhere
was any order or system--everything was struggling for itself, and
jarring and clashing with everything else; and this broke the spell
of power which the Titan city would otherwise have produced. It
seemed like a monstrous heap of wasted energies; a mountain in
perpetual labour, and producing an endless series of abortions. The
men and women in it were wearing themselves out with toil; but there
was a spell laid upon them, so that, struggle as they might, they
accomplished nothing.

Coming out of the church, Montague had met Judge Ellis; and the
Judge had said, "I shall soon have something to talk over with you."
So Montague gave him his address, and a day or two later came an
invitation to lunch with him at his club.

The Judge's club took up a Fifth Avenue block, and was stately and
imposing. It had been formed in the stress of the Civil War days;
lean and hungry heroes had come home from battle and gone into
business, and those who had succeeded had settled down here to rest.
To see them now, dozing in huge leather-cushioned arm-chairs, you
would have had a hard time to guess that they had ever been lean and
hungry heroes. They were diplomats and statesmen, bishops and
lawyers, great merchants and financiers--the men who had made the
city's ruling-class for a century. Everything here was decorous and
grave, and the waiters stole about with noiseless feet.

Montague talked with the Judge about New York and what he had seen
of it, and the people he had met; and about his father, and the war;
and about the recent election and the business outlook. And meantime
they ordered luncheon; and when they had got to the cigars, the
Judge coughed and said, "And now I have a matter of business to talk
over with you."

Montague settled himself to listen. "I have a friend," the Judge
explained--"a very good friend, who has asked me to find him a
lawyer to undertake an important case. I talked the matter over with
General Prentice, and he agreed with me that it would be a good idea
to lay the matter before you."

"I am very much obliged to you," said Montague.

"The matter is a delicate one," continued the other. "It has to do
with life insurance. Are you familiar with the insurance business?"

"Not at all."

"I had supposed not," said the Judge. "There are some conditions
which are not generally known about, but which I may say, to put it
mildly, are not wltogether satisfactory. My friend is a large
policy-holder in several companies, and he is not satisfied with the
management of them. The delicacy of the situation, so far as I am
concerned, is that the company with which he has the most fault to
find is one in which I myself am a director. You understand?"

"Perfectly," said Montague. "What company is it?"

"The Fidelity," replied the other--and his companion thought in a
flash of Freddie Vandam, whom he had met at Castle Havens! For the
Fidelity was Freddie's company.

"The first thing that I have to ask you," continued the Judge, "is
that, whether you care to take the case or not, you will consider my
own intervention in the matter absolutely entre nous. My position is
simply this: I have protested at the meetings of the directors of
the company against what I consider an unwise policy--and my
protests have been ignored. And when my friend asked me for advice,
I gave it to him; but at the same time I am not in a position to be
publicly quoted in connexion with the matter. You follow me?"

"Perfectly," said the other. "I will agree to what you ask."

"Very good. Now then, the condition is, in brief, this: the
companies are accumulating an enormous surplus, which, under the
law, belongs to the policy-holders; but the administrations of the
various companies are withholding these dividends, for the sake of
the banking-power which these accumulated funds afford to them and
their associates. This is, as I hold, a very manifest injustice, and
a most dangerous condition of affairs."

"I should say so!" responded Montague. He was amazed at such a
statement, coming from such a source. "How could this continue?" he
asked.

"It has continued for a long time," the Judge answered.

"But why is it not known?"

"It is perfectly well known to every one in the insurance business,"
was the answer. "The matter has never been taken up or published,
simply because the interests involved have such enormous and widely
extended power that no one has ever dared to attack them,"

Montague sat forward, with his eyes riveted upon the Judge. "Go on,"
he said.

"The situation is simply this," said the other. "My friend, Mr.
Hasbrook, wishes to bring a suit against the Fidelity Company to
compel it to pay to him his proper share of its surplus. He wishes
the suit pressed, and followed to the court of last resort."

"And do you mean to tell me," asked Montague, "that you would have
any difficulty to find a lawyer in New York to undertake such a
case?"

"No," said the other, "not exactly that. There are lawyers in New
York who would undertake anything. But to find a lawyer of standing
who would take it, and withstand all the pressure that would be
brought to bear upon him--that might take some time."

"You astonish me, Judge."

"Financial interests in this city are pretty closely tied together,
Mr. Montague. Of course there are law firms which are identified
with interests opposed to those who control the company. It would be
very easy to get them to take the case, but you can see that in that
event my friend would be accused of bringing the suit in their
interest; whereas he wishes it to appear, as it really is, a suit of
an independent person, seeking the rights of the vast body of the
policy-holders. For that reason, he wished to find a lawyer who was
identified with no interest of any sort, and who was free to give
his undivided attention to the issue. So I thought of you."

"I will take the case," said Montague instantly.

"It is my duty to warn you," said the Judge, gravely, "that you will
be taking a very serious step. You must be prepared to face
powerful, and, I am afraid, unscrupulous enemies. You may find that
you have made it impossible for other and very desirable clients to
deal with you. You may find your business interests, if you have
any, embarrassed--your credit impaired, and so on. You must be
prepared to have your character assailed, and your motives impugned
in the public press. You may find that social pressure will be
brought to bear on you. So it is a step from which most young men
who have their careers to make would shrink."

Montague's face had turned a shade paler as he listened. "I am
assuming," he said, "that the facts are as you have stated them to
me--that an unjust condition exists."

"You may assume that."

"Very well." And Montague clenched his hand, and put it down upon
the table. "I will take the case," he said.

For a few moments they sat in silence.

"I will arrange," said the Judge, at last, "for you and Mr. Hasbrook
to meet. I must explain to you, as a matter of fairness, that he is
a rich man, and will be able to pay you for your services. He is
asking a great deal of you, and he should expect to pay for it."

Montague sat in thought. "I have not really had time to get my
bearings in New York," he said at last. "I think I had best leave it
to you to say what I should charge him."

"If I were in your position," the Judge answered, "I think that I
should ask a retaining-fee of fifty thousand dollars. I believe he
will expect to pay at least that."

Montague could scarcely repress a start. Fifty thousand dollars! The
words made his head whirl round. But then, all of a sudden, he
recalled his half-jesting resolve to play the game of business
sternly. So he nodded his head gravely, and said, "Very well; I am
much obliged to you."

After a pause, he added, "I hope that I may prove able to handle the
case to your friend's satisfaction."

"Your ability remains for you to prove," said the Judge. "I have
only been in position to assure him of your character."

"He must understand, of course," said Montague, "that I am a
stranger, and that it will take me a while to study the situation."

"Of course he knows that. But you will find that Mr. Hasbrook knows
a good deal about the law himself. And he has already had a lot of
work done. You must understand that it is very easy to get legal
advice about such a matter--what is sought is some one to take the
conduct of the case."

"I see," said Montague; and the Judge added, with a smile, "Some one
to get up on horseback, and draw the fire of the enemy!"

And then the great man was, as usual, reminded of a story; and then
of more stories; until at last they rose from the table, and shook
hands upon their bargain, and parted.

Fifty thousand dollars! Fifty thousand dollars! It was all Montague
could do to keep from exclaiming it aloud on the street. He could
hardly believe that it was a reality--if it had been a less-known
person than Judge Ellis, he would have suspected that some one must
be playing a joke upon him. Fifty thousand dollars was more than
many a lawyer made at home in a lifetime; and simply as a
retaining-fee in one case! The problem of a living had weighed on
his soul ever since the first day in the city, and now suddenly it
was solved; all in a few minutes, the way had been swept clear
before him. He walked home as if upon air.

And then there was the excitement of telling the family about it. He
had an idea that his brother might be alarmed if he were told about
the seriousness of the case; and so he simply said that the Judge
had brought him a rich client, and that it was an insurance case.
Oliver, who knew and cared nothing about law, asked no questions,
and contented himself with saying, "I told you how easy it was to
make money in New York, if only you knew the right people!" As for
Alice, she had known all along that her cousin was a great man, and
that clients would come to him as soon as he hung out his sign.

His sign was not out yet, by the way; that was the next thing to be
attended to. He must get himself an office at once, and some books,
and begin to read up insurance law; and so, bright and early the
next morning, he took the subway down town.

And here, for the first time, Montague saw the real New York. All
the rest was mere shadow--the rest was where men slept and played,
but Jiere was where they fought out the battle of their lives. Here
the fierce intensity of it smote him in the face--he saw the cruel
waste and ruin of it, the wreckage of the blind, haphazard strife.

It was a city caught in a trap. It was pent in at one end of a
narrow little island. It had been no one's business to foresee that
it must some day outgrow this space; now men were digging a score of
tunnels to set it free, but they had not begun these until the
pressure had become unendurable, and now it had reached its climax.
In the financial district, land had been sold for as much as four
dollars a square inch. Huge blocks of buildings shot up to the sky
in a few months--fifteen, twenty, twenty-five stories of them, and
with half a dozen stories hewn out of the solid rock beneath; there
was to be one building of forty-two stories, six hundred and fifty
feet in height. And between them were narrow chasms of streets,
where the hurrying crowds overflowed the sidewalks. Yet other
streets were filled with trucks and heavy vehicles, with electric
cars creeping slowly along, and little swirls and eddies of people
darting across here and there.

These huge buildings were like beehives, swarming with life and
activity, with scores of elevators shooting through them at
bewildering speed. Everywhere was the atmosphere of rush; the spirit
of it seized hold of one, and he began to hurry, even though he had
no place to go. The man who walked slowly and looked about him was
in the way--he was jostled here and there, and people eyed him with
suspicion and annoyance.

Elsewhere on the island men did the work of the city; here they did
the work of the world. Each room in these endless mazes of buildings
was a cell in a mighty brain; the telephone wires were nerves, and
by the whole huge organism the thinking and willing of a continent
were done. It was a noisy place to the physical ear; but to the ear
of the mind it roared with the roaring of a thousand Niagaras. Here
was the Stock Exchange, where the scales of trade were held before
the eyes of the country. Here was the clearing-house, where hundreds
of millions of dollars were exchanged every day. Here were the great
banks, the reservoirs into which the streams of the country's wealth
were poured. Here were the brains of the great railroad systems, of
the telegraph and telephone systems, of mines and mills and
factories. Here were the centres of the country's trade; in one
place the shipping trade, in another the jewellery trade, the
grocery trade, the leather trade. A little farther up town was the
clothing district, where one might see the signs of more Hebrews
than all Jerusalem had ever held; in yet other districts were the
newspaper offices, and the centre of the magazine and
book-publishing business of the whole country. One might climb to
the top of one of the great "sky-scrapers," and gaze down upon a
wilderness of houses, with roofs as innumerable as tree-tops, and
people looking like tiny insects below. Or one might go out into the
harbour late upon a winter afternoon, and see it as a city of a
million lights, rising like an incantation from the sea. Round about
it was an unbroken ring of docks, with ferry-boats and tugs darting
everywhere, and vessels which had come from every port in the world,
emptying their cargoes into the huge maw of the Metropolis.

And of all this, nothing had been planned! All lay just as it had
fallen, and men bore the confusion and the waste as best they could.
Here were huge steel vaults, in which lay many billions of dollars'
worth of securities, the control of the finances of the country; and
a block or two in one direction were warehouses and gin-mills, and
in another direction cheap lodging-houses and sweating-dens. And at
a certain hour all this huge machine would come to a halt, and its
millions of human units would make a blind rush for their homes.
Then at the entrances to bridges and ferries and trams, would be
seen sights of madness and terror; throngs of men and women swept
hither and thither, pushing and struggling, shouting, cursing
--righting, now and then, in sudden panic fear. All decency was
forgotten here--people would be mashed into cars like football
players in a heap, and guards and policemen would jam the gates
tight--or like as not be swept away themselves in the pushing,
grunting, writhing mass of human beings. Women would faint and be
trampled; men would come out with clothing torn to shreds, and
sometimes with broken arms or ribs. And thinking people would gaze
at the sight and shudder, wondering--how long a city could hold
together, when the masses of its population were thus forced back,
day after day, habitually, upon the elemental brute within them.

In this vast business district Montague would have felt utterly lost
and helpless, if it had not been for that fifty thousand dollars,
and the sense of mastery which it gave him. He sought out General
Prentice, and under his guidance selected his suite of rooms, and
got his furniture and books in readiness. And a day or two later, by
appointment, came Mr. Hasbrook.

He was a wiry, nervous little man, who did not impress one as much
of a personality; but he had the insurance situation at his fingers'
ends--his grievance had evidently wrought upon him. Certainly, if
half of what he alleged were true, it was time that the courts took
hold of the affair.

Montague spent the whole day in consultation, going over every
aspect of the case, and laying out his course of procedure. And
then, at the end, Mr. Hasbrook remarked that it would be necessary
for them to make some financial arrangement. And the other set his
teeth together, and took a tight grip upon himself, and said,
"Considering the importance of the case, and all the circumstances,
I think I should have a retainer of fifty thousand dollars."

And the little man never turned a hair! "That will be perfectly
satisfactory," he said. "I will attend to it at once." And the
other's heart gave a great leap.

And sure enough, the next morning's mail brought the money, in the
shape of a cashier's cheque from one of the big banks. Montague
deposited it to his own account, and felt that the city was his!

And so he flung himself into the work. He went to his office every
day, and he shut himself up in his own rooms in the evening. Mrs.
Winnie was in despair because he would not come and learn bridge,
and Mrs. Vivie Patton sought him in vain for a week-end party. He
could not exactly say that while the others slept he was toiling
upward in the night, for the others did not sleep in the night; but
he could say that while they were feasting and dancing, he was
delving into insurance law. Oliver argued in vain to make him
realize that he could not live for ever upon one client; and that it
was as important for a lawyer to be a social light as to win his
first big case. Montague was so absorbed that he even failed to be
thrilled when one morning he opened an invitation envelope, and read
the fateful legend: "Mrs. Devon requests the honour of your
company"--telling him that he had "passed" on that critical
examination morning, and that he was definitely and irrevocably in
Society!






CHAPTER XII





Montague was now a capitalist, and therefore a keeper of the gates
of opportunity. It seemed as though the seekers for admission must
have had some occult way of finding it out; almost immediately they
began to lay siege to him.

About a week after his cheque arrived, Major Thorne, whom he had met
the first evening at the Loyal Legion, called him up and asked to
see him; and he came to Montague's room that evening, and after
chatting awhile about old times, proceeded to unfold a business
proposition. It seemed that the Major had a grandson, a young
mechanical engineer, who had been labouring for a couple of years at
a very important invention, a device for loading coal upon
steamships and weighing it automatically in the process. It was a
very complicated problem, needless to say, but it had been solved
successfully, and patents had been applied for, and a working model
constructed. But it had proved unexpectedly difficult to interest
the officials of the great steamship companies in the device. There
was no doubt about the practicability of the machine, or the
economies it would effect; but the officials raised trivial
objections, and caused delays, and offered prices that were
ridiculously inadequate. So the young inventor had conceived the
idea of organizing a company to manufacture the machines, and rent
them upon a royalty. "I didn't know whether you would have any
money," said Major Thorne, "--but I thought you might be in touch
with others who could be got to look into the matter. There is a
fortune in it for those who take it up."

Montague was interested, and he looked over the plans and
descriptions which his friend had brought, and said that he would
see the working model, and talk the proposition over with others.
And so the Major took his departure.

The first person Montague spoke to about it was Oliver, with whom he
chanced to be lunching, at the latter's club. This was the "All
Night" club, a meeting-place of fast young Society men and
millionaire Bohemians, who made a practice of going to bed at
daylight, and had taken for their motto the words of Tennyson--"For
men may come and men may go, but I go on for ever." It was not a
proper club for his brother to join, Oliver considered; Montague's
"game" was the heavy respectable, and the person to put him up was
General Prentice. But he was permitted to lunch there with his
brother to chaperon him--and also Reggie Mann, who happened in,
fresh from talking over the itinerary of the foreign prince with
Mrs. Ridgley-Clieveden, and bringing a diverting account of how Mrs.
R.-C. had had a fisticuffs with her maid.

Montague mentioned the invention casually, and with no idea that his
brother would have an opinion one way or the other. But Oliver had
quite a vigorous opinion: "Good God, Allan, you aren't going to let
yourself be persuaded into a thing like that!"

"But what do you know about it?" asked the other. "It may be a
tremendous thing."

"Of course!" cried Oliver. "But what can you tell about it? You'll
be like a child in other people's hands, and they'll be certain to
rob you. And why in the world do you want to take risks when you
don't have to?"

"I have to put my money somewhere," said Montague.

"His first fee is burning a hole in his pocket!" put in Reggie Mann,
with a chuckle. "Turn it over to me, Mr. Montague; and let me spend
it in a gorgeous entertainment for Alice; and the prestige of it
will bring you more cases than you can handle in a lifetime!"

"He had much better spend it all for soda water than buy a lot of
coal chutes with it," said Oliver: "Wait awhile, and let me find you
some place to put your money, and you'll see that you don't have to
take any risks."

"I had no idea of taking it up until I'd made certain of it,"
replied the other. "And those whose judgment I took would, of
course, go in also."

The younger man thought for a moment. "You are going to dine with
Major Venable to-night, aren't you?" he asked; and when the other
answered in the affirmative, he continued," Very well, then, ask
him. The Major's been a capitalist for forty years, and if you can
get him to take it up, why, you'll know you're safe."

Major Venable had taken quite a fancy to Montague--perhaps the old
gentleman liked to have somebody to gossip with, to whom all his
anecdotes were new. He had seconded Montague's name at the
"Millionaires'," where he lived, and had asked him there to make the
acquaintance of some of the other members. Before Montague parted
with his brother, he promised that he would talk the matter over
with the Major.

The Millionaires' was the show club of the city, the one which the
ineffably rich had set apart for themselves. It was up by the park,
in a magnificent white marble palace which had cost a million
dollars. Montague felt that he had never really known the Major
until he saw him here. The Major was excellent at all times and
places, but in this club he became an edition de luxe of himself. He
made his headquarters here, keeping his suite of rooms all the year
round; and the atmosphere and surroundings of the place seemed to be
a part of him.

Montague thought that the Major's face grew redder every day, and
the purple veins in it purpler; or was it that the old gentleman's
shirt bosom gleamed more brightly in the glare of the lights? The
Major met him in the stately entrance hall, fifty feet square and
all of Numidian marble, with a ceiling of gold, and a great bronze
stairway leading to the gallery above. He apologized for his velvet
slippers and for his hobbling walk--he was getting his accursed gout
again. But he limped around and introduced his friend to the other
millionaires--and then told scandal about them behind their backs.

The Major was the very type of a blue-blooded old aristocrat; he was
all noblesse oblige to those within the magic circle of his
intimacy--but alas for those outside it! Montague had never heard
anyone bully servants as the Major did. "Here you!" he would cry,
when something went wrong at the table. "Don't you know any better
than to bring me a dish like that? Go and send me somebody who knows
how to set a table!" And, strange to say, the servants all
acknowledged his perfect right to bully them, and flew with
terrified alacrity to do his bidding. Montague noticed that the
whole staff of the club leaped into activity whenever the Major
appeared; and when he was seated at the table, he led off in this
fashion--"Now I want two dry Martinis. And I want them at once--do
you understand me? Don't stop to get me any butter plates or
finger-bowls--I want two cock-tails, just as quick as you can carry
them!"

Dinner was an important event to Major Venable--the most important
in life. The younger man humbly declined to make any suggestions,
and sat and watched while his friend did all the ordering. They had
some very small oysters, and an onion soup, and a grouse and
asparagus, with some wine from the Major's own private store, and
then a romaine salad. Concerning each one of these courses, the
Major gave special injunctions, and throughout his conversation he
scattered comments upon them: "This is good thick soup--lots of
nourishment in onion soup. Have the rest of this?--I think the
Burgundy is too cold. Sixty-five is as cold as Burgundy ought ever
to be. I don't mind sherry as low as sixty.--They always cook a bird
too much--Robbie Waiting's chef is the only person I know who never
makes a mistake with game."

All this, of course, was between comments upon the assembled
millionaires. There was Hawkins, the corporation lawyer; a shrewd
fellow, cold as a corpse. He was named for an ambassadorship--a very
efficient. man. Used to be old Wyman's confidential adviser and buy
aldermen for him.--And the man at table with him was Harrison,
publisher of the Star; administration newspaper, sound and
conservative. Harrison was training for a cabinet position. He was a
nice little man, and would make a fine splurge in Washington.--And
that tall man coming in was Clarke, the steel magnate; and over
there was Adams, a big lawyer also--prominent reformer--civic
righteousness and all that sort of stuff. Represented the Oil Trust
secretly, and went down to Trenton to argue against some reform
measure, and took along fifty thousand dollars in bills in his
valise. "A friend of mine got wind of what he was doing, and taxed
him with it," said the Major, and laughed gleefully over the great
lawyer's reply--"How did I know but I might have to pay for my own
lunch?"--And the fat man with him--that was Jimmie Featherstone, the
chap who had inherited a big estate. "Poor Jimmie's going all to
pieces," the Major declared. "Goes down town to board meetings now
and then--they tell a hair-raising story about him and old Dan
Waterman. He had got up and started a long argument, when Waterman
broke in, 'But at the earlier meeting you argued directly to the
contrary, Mr. Featherstone!' 'Did I?' said Jimmie, looking
bewildered. 'I wonder why I did that?' 'Well, Mr. Featherstone,
since you ask me, I'll tell you,' said old Dan--he's savage as a
wild boar, you know, and won't be delayed at meetings. 'The reason
is that the last time you were drunker than you are now. If you
would adopt a uniform standard of intoxication for the directors'
meetings of this road, it would expedite matters considerably.'"

They had got as far as the romaine salad. The waiter came with a
bowl of dressing--and at the sight of it, the old gentleman forgot
Jimmie Featherstone. "Why are you bringing me that stuff?" he cried.
"I don't want that! Take it away and get me some vinegar and oil."

The waiter fled in dismay, while the Major went on growling under
his breath. Then from behind him came a voice: "What's the matter
with you this evening, Venable? You're peevish!"

The Major looked up. "Hello, you old cormorant," said he. "How do
you do these days?"

The old cormorant replied that he did very well. He was a pudgy
little man, with a pursed-up, wrinkled face. "My friend Mr.
Montague--Mr. Symmes," said the Major.

"I am very pleased to meet you, Mr. Montague," said Mr. Symmes,
peering over his spectacles.

"And what are you doing with yourself these days?" asked the Major.

The other smiled genially. "Nothing much," said he. "Seducing my
friends' wives, as usual."

"And who's the latest?"

"Read the newspapers, and you'll find out," laughed Symmes. "I'm
told I'm being shadowed."

He passed on down the room, chuckling to himself; and the Major
said, "That's Maltby Symmes. Have you heard of him?"

"No," said Montague.

"He gets into the papers a good deal. He was up in supplementary
proceedings the other day--couldn't pay his liquor bill."

"A member of the Millionaires'?" laughed Montague.

"Yes, the papers made quite a joke out of it," said the other. "But
you see he's run through a couple of fortunes; the last was his
mother's--eleven millions, I believe. He's been a pretty lively old
boy in his time."

The vinegar and oil had now arrived, and the Major set to work to
dress the salad. This was quite a ceremony, and Montague took it
with amused interest. The Major first gathered all the necessary
articles together, and looked them all over and grumbled at them.
Then he mixed the vinegar and the pepper and salt, a tablespoonful
at a time, and poured it over the salad. Then very slowly and
carefully the oil had to be poured on, the salad being poked and
turned about so that it would be all absorbed. Perhaps it was
because he was so busy narrating the escapades of Maltty Symmes that
the old gentleman kneaded it about so long; all the time fussing
over it like a hen-partridge with her chicks, and interrupting
himself every sentence or two: "It was Lenore, the opera star, and
he gave her about two hundred thousand dollars' worth of railroad
shares. (Really, you know, romaine ought not to be served in a bowl
at all, but in a square, flat dish, so that one could keep the ends
quite dry.) And when they quarrelled, she found the old scamp had
fooled her--the shares had never been transferred. (One is not
supposed to use a fork at all, you know.) But she sued him, and he
settled with her for about half the value. (If this dressing were
done properly, there ought not to be any oil in the bottom of the
dish at all.)"

This last remark meant that the process had reached its climax--that
the long, crisp leaves were receiving their final affectionate
overturnings. While the waiter stood at respectful attention, two or
three pieces at a time were laid carefully upon the little silver
plate intended for Montague. "And now," said the triumphant host,
"try it! If it's good, it ought to be neither sweet nor bitter, but
just right."--And he watched anxiously while Montague tasted it,
saying, "If it's the least bit bitter, say so; and we'll send it
out. I've told them about it often enough before."

But it was not bitter, and so the Major proceeded to help himself,
after which the waiter whisked the bowl away. "I'm told that salad
is the one vegetable we have from the Romans," said the old boy, as
he munched at the crisp green leaves. "It's mentioned by Horace, you
know.--As I was saying, all this was in Symmes's early days. But
since his son's been grown up, he's married another chorus-girl."

After the salad the Major had another cocktail. In the beginning
Montague had noticed that his hands shook and his eyes were watery;
but now, after these copious libations, he was vigorous, and, if
possible, more full of anecdotes than ever. Montague thought that it
would be a good time to broach his inquiry, and so when the coffee
had been served, he asked, "Have you any objections to talking
business after dinner?"

"Not with you," said the Major. "Why? What is it?"

And then Montague told him about his friend's proposition, and
described the invention. The other listened attentively to the end;
and then, after a pause, Montague asked him, "What do you think of
it?"

"The invention's no good," said the Major, promptly.

"How do you know?" asked the other.

"Because, if it had been, the companies would have taken it long
ago, without paying him a cent."

"But he has it patented," said Montague.

"Patented hell!" replied the other. "What's a patent to lawyers of
concerns of that size? They'd have taken it and had it in use from
Maine to Texas; and when he sued, they'd have tied the case up in so
many technicalities and quibbles that he couldn't have got to the
end of it in ten years--and he'd have been ruined ten times over in
the process."

"Is that really done?" asked Montague.

"Done!" exclaimed the Major. "It's done so often you might say it's
the only thing that's done.--The people are probably trying to take
you in with a fake."

"That couldn't possibly be so," responded the other. "The man is a
friend--"

"I've found it an excellent rule never to do business with friends,"
said the Major, grimly.

"But listen," said Montague; and he argued long enough to convince
his companion that that could not be the true explanation. Then the
Major sat for a minute or two and pondered; and suddenly he
exclaimed, "I have it! I see why they won't touch it!"

"What is it?"

"It's the coal companies! They're giving the steamships short
weight, and they don't want the coal weighed truly!"

"But there's no sense in that," said Montague. "It's the steamship
companies that won't take the machine."

"Yes," said the Major; "naturally, their officers are sharing the
graft." And he laughed heartily at Montague's look of perplexity.

"Do you know anything about the business?" Montague asked.

"Nothing whatever," said the Major. "I am like the German who shut
himself up in his inner consciousness and deduced the shape of an
elephant from first principles. I know the game of big business from
A to Z, and I'm telling you that if the invention is good and the
companies won't take it, that's the reason; and I'll lay you a wager
that if you were to make an investigation, some such thing as that
is what you'd find! Last winter I went South on a steamer, and when
we got near port, I saw them dumping a ton or two of good food
overboard; and I made inquiries, and learned that one of the
officials of the company ran a farm, and furnished the stuff--and
the orders were to get rid of so much every trip!"

Montague's jaw had fallen. "What could Major Thorne do against such
a combination?" he asked.

"I don't know," said the Major, shrugging his shoulders. "It's a
case to take to a lawyer--one who knows the ropes. Hawkins over
there would know what to tell you. I should imagine the thing he'd
advise would be to call a strike of the men who handle the coal, and
tie up the companies and bring them to terms."

"You're joking now!" exclaimed the other.

"Not at all," said the Major, laughing again. "It's done all the
time. There's a building trust in this city, and the way it put all
its rivals out of business was by having strikes called on their
jobs."

"But how could it do that?"

"Easiest thing in the world. A labour leader is a man with a great
deal of power, and a very small salary to live on. And even if he
won't sell out--there are other ways. I could introduce you to a man
right in this room who had a big strike on at an inconvenient time,
and he had the president of the union trapped in a hotel with a
woman, and the poor fellow gave in and called off the strike."'

"I should think the strikers might sometimes get out of hand," said
Montague.

"Sometimes they do," smiled the other. "There is a regular procedure
for that case. Then you hire detectives and start violence, and call
out the militia and put the strike leaders into jail."

Montague could think of nothing to say to that. The programme seemed
to be complete.

"You see," the Major continued, earnestly, "I'm advising you as a
friend, and I'm taking the point of view of a man who has money in
his pocket. I've had some there always, but I've had to work hard to
keep it there. All my life I've been surrounded by people who wanted
to do me good; and the way they wanted to do it was to exchange my
real money for pieces of paper which they'd had printed with fancy
scroll-work and eagles and flags. Of course, if you want to look at
the thing from the other side, why, then the invention is most
ingenious, and trade is booming just now, and this is a great
country, and merit is all you need in it--and everything else is
just as it ought to be. It makes ahl the difference in the world,
you know, whether a man is buying a horse or selling him!"

Montague had observed with perplexity that such incendiary talk as
this was one of the characteristics of people in these lofty
altitudes. It was one of the liberties accorded to their station.
Editors and bishops and statesmen and all the rest of their
retainers had to believe in the respectabilities, even in the
privacy of their clubs--the people's ears were getting terribly
sharp these days! But among the real giants of business you might
have thought yourself in a society of revolutionists; they would
tear up the mountain tops and hurl them at each other. When one of
these old war-horses once got started, he would tell tales of
deviltry to appall the soul of the hardiest muck-rake man. It was
always the other fellow, of course; but then, if you pinned your man
down, and if he thought that he could trust you--he would
acknowledge that he had sometimes fought the enemy with the enemy's
own weapons!

But of course one must understand that all this radicalism was for
conversational purposes only. The Major, for instance, never had the
slightest idea of doing anything about all the evils of which he
told; when it came to action, he proposed to do just what he had
done all his life--to sit tight on his own little pile. And the
Millionaires' was an excellent place to learn to do it!

"See that old money-bags over there in the corner," said the Major.
"He's a man you want to fix in your mind--old Henry S. Grimes. Have
you heard of him?"

"Vaguely," said the other.

"He's Laura Hegan's uncle. She'll have his money also some day--but
Lord, how he does hold on to it meantime! It's quite tragic, if you
come to know him--he's frightened at his own shadow. He goes in for
slum tenements, and I guess he evicts more people in a month than
you could crowd into this building!"

Montague looked at the solitary figure at the table, a man with a
wizened-up little face like a weasel's, and a big napkin tied around
his neck. "That's so as to save his shirt-front for to-morrow," the
Major explained. "He's really only about sixty, but you'd think he
was eighty. Three times every day he sits here and eats a bowl of
graham crackers and milk, and then goes out and sits rigid in an
arm-chair for an hour. That's the regimen his doctors have put him
on--angels and ministers of grace defend us!"

The old gentleman paused, and a chuckle shook his scarlet jowls.
"Only think!" he said--"they tried to do that to me! But no,
sir--when Bob Venable has to eat graham crackers and milk, he'll put
in arsenic instead of sugar! That's the way with many a one of these
rich fellows, though--you picture him living in Capuan luxury, when,
as a matter of fact, he's a man with a torpid liver and a weak
stomach, who is put to bed at ten o'clock with a hot-water bag and a
flannel night-cap!"

The two had got up and were strolling toward the smoking-room; when
suddenly at one side a door opened, and a group of men came out. At
the head of them was an extraordinary figure, a big powerful body
with a grim face. "Hello!" said the Major. "All the big bugs are
here to-night. There must be a governors' meeting."

"Who is that?" asked his companion; and he answered, "That? Why,
that's Dan Waterman."

Dan Waterman! Montague stared harder than ever, and now he
identified the face with the pictures he had seen. Waterman, the
Colossus of finance, the Croesus of copper and gold! How many trusts
had Waterman organized! And how many puns had been made upon that
name of his!

"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 held 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 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, 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 send is for ten." "I know it," was the
smiling answer--"but somehow I thought eight seemed harder to write
than ten!"