The Master Rogue: The Confessions of a Croesus

by David Graham Phillips

I sent a man from my office along with my architect to act as an auditor for his expense accounts, and to see that he did his work conscientiously and did not use my money and my purchase of his time in junketing “au grand prince.” In addition to planning the palace, he was to settle upon interior decorations and to buy pictures, tapestries, carvings, furniture, etc., etc.—of course, making no important purchases without consulting me by cable. I believe he never did a harder year’s work in his life—and I’m not easily convinced as to what I haven’t seen with my own eyes.

When he came home and submitted the results of his tour, I myself took them abroad and went over them with the authorities on architecture and decoration in Paris. It was two years before the final plan was ready for execution. In those two years I had learned much—so much that my palace near Fifty-ninth Street, which I had imagined the acme of art and splendour when I accepted its final plans, had become to me an intolerable flaunting of ignorance and tawdriness. I had intended still to retain it as the hereditary residence for the heirs-apparent of my line, and, when they should succeed to the headship of the family, the so-to-speak dowager-residence. But my education had made this impossible. I was impatient for the moment to arrive when I could sell it, or tear it down, and put in place of it a flat-house for people of moderate wealth, or a first-class hotel.

Three years and a half from the sailing of my architect in quest of ideas I took possession of the completed palace. First and last I had spent nearly five millions and a half upon it; I was well content with the result. Nor has the envious chatter of alleged critics in this country disturbed me. There will be scores of houses as costly, and many as imposing, before fifty years have passed; but, until there is a revolution in the art of building, there will be none more dignified, more conspicuous, or more creditable. I flatter myself that, as money is spent, I got at least two dollars of value for every dollar I paid out. I wished to build for the centuries, and I am confident that I have accomplished my purpose. Only an earthquake or a rain of ruin from the sky or a flood of riot can overthrow my handiwork.

But to go back a little. Just as we were about to move, my wife and Ridley died within a few days of each other. At first these deaths were a severe shock to me, as, aside from the sad, yet after all inevitable, parting, there was the prospect of the complete disarrangement of my domestic plans, and at a highly inconvenient moment. But, thanks to my unfailing luck, my fears proved groundless. Helen came splendidly to the rescue and displayed at once an executive ability that more than filled the gap. My plans for the change of residence, for the expansion of the establishment, and for my own comfort—everything went forward smoothly, far more smoothly than I had hoped when my wife and Ridley were alive and part of my calculation.

At first blush it may seem rather startling, but I missed poor old Ridley far more than I missed my wife. A moment’s consideration, however, will show that this was neither strange nor unnatural. For twenty years he was my constant companion whenever I was not at work down-town. During those twenty years I had seen little of my wife except in the presence of others, usually some of them not members of my family. Whenever we were alone, it was for the despatch of more or less disagreeable business. She had her staff of servants, I mine; she had her interests, I mine. Wherever our interests met, they clashed.

I think she was a thoroughly unhappy woman—as every woman must be who does not keep to the privacy and peace of the home. I looked at her after she had been dead a few hours, and was impressed by the unusualness of the tranquillity of her face. It vividly recalled her in the days when we lived in the little house in the side street away down-town and talked over our business and domestic affairs every night before going to sleep. After the first few years and until almost the end she was a great trial to me. But I have no resentment. Indeed, now that she is gone I feel inclined to concede that she was not so much to blame as are these absurd social conditions that tempt women to yield to their natural folly and give them power to harass and hamper men.

I’m inclined to despair of marriage, at least so far as we of the upper and dominating, and example-setting, class are concerned. With us what basis of common interest is there left between husband and wife? He has his large business affairs which wholly absorb him, which do not interest her—indeed, which he would on no account permit her small, uninformed mind to meddle in. With all his energy and all his intelligence enlisted elsewhere, what time or interest has he for home and wife? And to her he seems dull, an infliction and a bore. Nor has she any interest at home—governesses, a housekeeper, an army of servants do her work for her. So far as I can see, except as a means whereby a woman may disport herself in mischief-breeding luxury and laziness, marriage has no rational excuse for persisting.

It was with genuine regret that I was compelled to deny my wife’s last request. I say “deny,” but I was, of course, far too generous and considerate to torment her in her last moments. When she made up her mind that the doctors and nurses were deceiving her and that she wasn’t to get well, she asked for me. When we were alone, she said: “James, I wish to see our son—I wish you to send for him.”

I did not pretend to misunderstand her. I knew she meant James. As she was very feeble, and barely conscious, she was in no condition to decide for herself. It was a time for me to be gentle; but there is never a time for weakness. “Yes,” I said, humouring her, “I will have him sent for.”

“I wish you to send for him, James,” she insisted; “send right away.”