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!”