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!”
“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, as sure as God made me! She was a well-known society woman, but 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!”
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 lived 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 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.