“Being, as I said before, an outsider, you likely don't realize how many of those big swell millionaires' cribs uptown are in the hands of caretakers like Larry and his mother and me the best part of the year. Well, they are; and there's a social life goes on in them that don't ever get into the papers. The parties we had that year in Jake's house would have done Jake himself good, if Jake could have got an invitation to them. But Jake was absent, though his cellar and his grocers were at our service; and he never questioned a bill, Larry said. There were twelve or fifteen hand-picked servants in our little social circle that year, and before I left there I could begin to understand how these débutantes feel at the end of the season—sort of tired and bored and willing to relax and go in for work and rest and athletics for a change.
“I had only been butler's companion for a few weeks when Old Man Singleton dropped in one evening—yes, sir, Old Lemuel Singleton himself. He came to see the butler's mother, Mrs. Hodgkins. He had known her a good many years before, when he was wearing those red mittens and sawing wood up in that New England town and she was somebody's Irish cook. And he had run across her again, after he became a millionaire, down here in New York City. He was tickled to see her, and he didn't care a darn if she was Jake Hergsheimer's housekeeper. She could cook cabbage and kale better than any one else in the world, and he used to come and sit with her, and talk about that little old town up there, and indulge in his favorite dissipation.
“Old Man Singleton has had what you call the social entrée in New York for a good many years; for so long that some of his children, and all his grandchildren, were born with it. But he never took it very seriously himself. He has been an in-and-outer, you might say. If he saw Mrs. Hodgkins around Jake's house, he would call her Mary and ask her how folks were up home in front of Jake and his wife and a whole bunch of guests, just as soon as not.
“And his sons and his daughters and his grandchildren never could get him out of those ways; he always was bull-headed about doing what he pleased, so Mrs. Hodgkins told me, and he always will be. And the old lady liked to see him and chin with him and cook for him; and believe me, she was some cook when she set herself to it. Not merely kale, but everything. She didn't cook for the Hergsheimers—they had a chef for that—but they missed it by not having her. Victuals was old Mary's middle name, and she could rustle up some of the best grub you ever threw your lip over.
“At first, Old Man Singleton and Mrs. Hodgkins didn't mix much with us younger folks when we pulled a party. It wasn't that we were too aristocratic for them, for off duty, as I said before, butlers and other swells can be as easy and jolly as common people. But they seemed too antiquated, if you get me; they were living too much in the past.
“And then, one night, I discovered what Old Man Singleton's fad was—kale. Money. Big money. Big money on his person. It was this way: Larry and I wanted to go downtown and have a little fun, but neither of us had any cash in hand. Larry had a check for one hundred and fifty dollars which Jake Hergsheimer had sent him, but all the tradesmen we knew were closed at that hour, and there wasn't any way to cash it, unless Old Man Singleton could.
“'Mr. Singleton,' says Larry to the old man, who was sitting down to a mess of pork and kale with Mrs. Hodgkins, 'maybe you can cash this for me.' And he handed him the check.
“The old man stopped eating and put his glasses on and pulled a billfolder out of his pocket, with a kind of pleased smile on his face.
“'Let me see,' he says, taking out the bills, and running them over with his fingers; 'let me see.'
“I nearly dropped dead. There wasn't a bill in there of lower denomination than one thousand dollars; and most of them were ten-thousand-dol-lar bills.