The Metropolis

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 aU 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 €ach other. Wlien one of these old warrhorses 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

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

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want to fix in your mind — old Henry S. Grimes. Have you heard of him?"

"Vaguely," said the other.

"Hes 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 nightcap!"

The two had got up and were strolling toward

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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 tonight. 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 Crcesus of copper and gold! How many trusts had Waterman organised! 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 neld 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

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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.

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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 sent is for ten." "I know it,'' was the smiling answer — " but somehow I thought eight seemed Jiarder 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, a,s sure as God made me ! She was a welHsnown society woman, hut 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!"

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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 livea 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

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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.

The Lester Todds themselves were ardent pursuers of all varieties of game, and in various clubs and private preserves they followed the seasons, from Florida and North Carolina to Ontario, with occasional side trips to Norway, and New Brunswick, and British Columbia. Here at home they had a whole mountain of virgin forest, carefully preserved; and in the Renaissance palace at the summit — which they carelessly referred to as a "lodge" — you would find such articles de vertu as a ten-thousand-dollar table with a set of two-thousand-dollar chairs, and quite ordinary-looking rugs at ten and twenty thousand dollars each.— All these prices you might ascertain without any diflSculty at all, because there were many newspaper articles describing the house to be read in an album in the hall. On Saturday afternoons Mrs. Todd welcomed the neighbours in a pastel grey reception-gown, the front of which contained a peacock embroidered in silk, with jewels in every feather, and a diamond solitaire for an eye; and in the evening there was a dance, and she appeared in a gown with several hundred diamonds sewn upon it, and received her guests upon a rug set with jewels to match.

All together, Montague judged this the'' fastest'' set he had yet encountered; they ate more and drank more and intrigued more openly. He had been slowly acquiring the special lingo of

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Society, but these people had so much more slang that he felt all lost again. A young lady who was gossiping to him about those present remarked that a certain youth was a "spasm"; and then, seeing the look of perplexity upon his face, she laughed, "I don't believe you know what I mean!" Montague replied that he had ventured to infer that she did not like him.

And then there was Mrs. Harper, who came from Chicago by way of London. Ten years ago Mrs. Harper had overwhelmed New York with the millions brought from her great department-store; and had then moved on, sigh-mg for new worlds to conquer. When she had left Chicago, her grammar had been unexceptionable ; but now that she had become a crony of the king's, she said "you ain't" and dropped all her g's; and when Montague brought down a bird at long range, she exclaimed, condescendingly, "Why, you're quite a dab at it!" He sat in the front seat of an automobile, and heard the great lady behind him referring to the sturdy Jersey farmers, whose ancestors had fought the British and Hessians all over the state, as "your peasantry."

It was an extraordinary privilege to have Mrs. Harper for a guest; "at home" she moved about in state recalling that of Queen Victoria, with flags and bunting on the way, and crowds of school children cheering. She kept up half a dozen establishments, and had a hundred thousand acres of game preserves in Scotland. She made a specialty of collecting jewels which had belonged to the romantic and picturesque queens

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of history. She appeared at the dance in a breastplate of diamonds covering the entire front of her Dodice, so that she was literally clothed in light; and with her was her English friend, Mrs. Percy, who had accompanied her in her triumph through the courts and camps of Europe, and displayed a famous lorgnette-chain, containing one specimen of every rare and beautiful jewel known. Mrs. Percy wore a gown of cloth of gold tissue, covered with a fortune in Venetian lace, and made a tremendous sensation— until the rumour spread that it was a rehash of the costume which Mrs. Harper had worn at the Duchess of London's ball. The Chicago lady herself never by any chance appeared in the same costume twice.

Alice had a grand "time at the Todds'; all the men fell in love with her — one in particular, a young chap named Fayette, quite threw himself at her feet. He was wealthy, but unfortunately he had made his money by eloping with a rich girl (who was one of the present party), and so, from a practical point of view, his attentions were not desirable for Alice.

Montague was left with the task of finding these things out for -himself, for his brother devoted himself exclusively to Betty Wyman. The way these two disappeared between meals was a jest of the whole company; so that when they were on their way home, Montague felt called upon to make paternal inquiries.

"We're as much engaged as we dare to be," Oliver answered him.

"And when do you expect to marry her?"

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"God knows," said he, "I don't. The old man wouldn't give her a cent."

"And you couldn't support her?"

"I? Good heavens, Allan — do you suppose Betty would consent to be poor?"

" Have you asked her ? " inquired: Miontague.

"I don't want to ask her, thank you! I've not the least desire to live in a hovel with a girl who's been brought up in a palace."

"Then what do you expect to do?"

"Wellj Betty has a rich aunt in a lunatic asylum. And then I'm making: money, you know — and the old boy will have to relent in the end. And we're having a very good time in the meanwhile, you know."

"You can't be very much in love," said Montague— to which his brother replied cheerfully that they were as much* in love as they felt like being.

This was on the train Monday morning. Oliver observed that his brother relapsed into a brown study, and remarked,/'I suppose you're going back now to bury yourself in- your books. You've got to give me one evening this week for a dinner that's important."

"Where's that?" asked the other.

"Oh, it's a long story," said Oliver. "I'll explain it to you sometime. But first we must have an understanding about next week, . also — I suppose you've not overlooked the fact that it's Christmas week. And you won't be per^-mitted to do any work then."

"But that's impossible !" exclaimed the other.

"Nothing else is possible," said:Oliver, firmly.

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"I've made an engagement for you with the Eldridge Devons up the Hudson —"

"For the whole week?"

"The whole week. And it'll be the most important thing you've done. Mrs. Winnie's going to take us all in her car, and you will make no end of indispensable acquaintances."

"Oliver, I don't see now in the world I can do it!" the other protested in dismay, and went on for several minutes arguing and explaining what he had to do. But Oliver contented himself with the assurance that where there's a will, there's a way. One could not refuse an invitation to spend Christmas with the Eldridge Devons!

And sure enough, there was a way. Mr. Hasbrook had mentioned to him that he had had considerable work done upon the case, and would have the papers sent round. And when Montague reached his oflSce that morning, he found them there. There was a package of several thousand pages; and upon examining them, he found to his utter consternation that they contained a complete bill of complaint, with all the necessary references and citations, and a preliminary draught of a brief — in short, a complete and thoroughgoing preparation of his case. There could not have been less than ten or fifteen thousand dollars' worth of work in the papers; and Montague sat quite aghast, turning over the neatly typewritten sheets. He could indeed afford to attend Christmas house parties, if all his clients were to treat him like this!

He felt a little piqued about it — for he had

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noted some of these points for himself, and felt a little proud about them. Apparently he was to be nothing but a figure-head in the case! And he turned to the 'phone and called up Mr. Hasbrook, and asked him what he expected him to do with these papers. There was the whole case here; and was he simply to take them as they stood?

No one could have replied more considerately than did Mr. Hasbrook. The papers were for Montague's benefit — he would do exactly as he pleased with them. He might use them as they stood, or reject them altogether, or make them the basis for his own work — anything that appealed to his judgment would 1be satisfactory. And so Montague turned about and wrote an acceptance to the formal invitation which had come from the Eldridge Devons.

Later on in the day Oliver called up, and said that he was to go out to dinner the following evening, and that he would call for him at eight. "It's with the Jack Evanses," Oliver added. "Do you know them.?"

Montague had heard the name, as that of the president of a chain of Western railroads. "Do you mean him.''" he asked.

"Yes," said the other. "They're a rum crowd, but there's money in it. I'll call early and explain it to you."

But it was explained sooner than that. During the next afternoon Montague had a caller — none other than Mrs. Winnie Duval. Someone had left Mrs. Winnie some more money, it appeared ; and there was a lot of red tape attached

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to it, which she wanted the new lawyer to attend to. Also, she said, she hoped that he would charge.her a lot of money by way of encouraging himself. It was a mere bagatelle of a hundred thousand or so, from some forgotten aunt in the West.

The business was soon disposed of, and then Mrs. Winnie asked Montague if he had any place to go -to for dinner that evening: which was the occasion of his mentioning the Jack Evanses. "O dear me!" said Mrs. Winnie, with a laugh. " Is Ollie going to take you there ? What a funny time you'll have!"

"Do you know them.''" asked the other.

"Heavens, no!" was the answer. "Nobody knows them; but everybody knows about them. My husband meets old Evans in business, of course, and thinks he's a good sort. But the family — dear me !"

"How much of it is there?"

"Why, there's the old lady, and two grown daughters and a son. The son's a fine chap, they say — the old man took him in hand and

gut him at work in the^ shops. But I suppose e thought that daughters were too much of a proposition for him, and so he sent them to a fancy school — and, I tell you, they're the most highly poUshed human specimens that ever you encountered!"

It sounded entertaining. "But what does Oliver want with them?" asked Montague, wonderingly.

"It isn't that he wants them — they want him. They're climbers, you know — perfectly

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frantic. They've come to town to get into Society."

"Then you mean that they pay OUver?" asked Montague.

"I don't know that," said the other, with a laugh. "You'll have to ask OUie. They've a number of the httle brothers of the rich hanging round them, picking up whatever plunder s in sight."

A look of pain crossed Montague's face; and she saw it, and put out her hand with a sudden gesture. "Oh!" she exclaimed, " I've off ended you!"

"No," said he, "it's not that exactly — I wouldn't be offended. But I'm worried about-my brother."

"How do you mean.''"

"He gets a lot of money somehow, and I don't know what it means."

The woman sat for a few moments in silence, watching him. "Didn't he have any when became here.''" she asked.

"Not very much," said he.

"Because," she went on, "if he didn't, he certainly managed it very cleverly — we aU thought he had."

Again there was a pause; then suddenly Mrs. Winnie said: "Do you know, you feel differently about money from the way we do in New York. Do you realise it?"

"I'm not sure," said he. "How do you mean ?

"You look at it in an old-fashioned sort of way — a person has to earn it — it's a sign of

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something he's done. It came to me just now, all in a flash — we don't feel that way about money. We haven't any of us earned ours; we've just got it. And it never occurs to us to «xpect other people to earn it — all we want to know is if they have it."

Montague did not tell his companion how Tery profound a remark he considered that; he was afraid it would not be delicate to agree with her. He had heard a story of a negro occupant of the "mourners' bench," who was volu-ole in confession of his sins, but took exception to the fervour with which the congregation said ^'Amen!"

"The Evanses used to be a lot funnier than they are now," continued Mrs. Winnie, after a while. "When they came here last year, they "were really frightful. They had an English chap for social secretary — a younger son of some broken-down old family. My brother knew a man who had been one of their intimates in the West, and he said it was perfectly excruciating — this fellow used to sit at the table and give orders to the whole crowd: ' Your ice-cream fork should be at your right hand, Miss Mary. — One never asks for more soup, Master Robert. — And Miss Anna, always move your soup-spoon from you — that's better!'"

"I fancy I shall feel sorry for them," said Montague.

"Oh, you needn't," said the other, promptly. "They'll get what they want."

"Do you think so?"

"Why, certainly they will. They've got the

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money; and they've been abroad — they're learning the game. And they'll keep at it until they succeed — what else is there for them to do? And then my husband says that old Evans is making himself a power here in the East; so that pretty soon they won't dare offend him."

"Does that count.?" asked the man.

"Well, I guess it counts!" laughed Mrs. Winnie. "It has of late." And she went on to tell him of the society leader who had dared to offend the daughters of a great magnate, and how the magnate had retaliated by turning the woman's husband out of his high office. That was often the way in the business world; the struggles were supposed to be affairs of men, but oftener than not the moving power was a woman's intrigue. You would see a great upheaval in Wall Street, and it would be two of the big men quarrelling over a mistress; you would see some man rushed suddenly into a high office — and that would be because his wife had sold herself to advance him.

Mrs. Winnie took him up town in her auto, and he dressed for dinner; and then came Oliver, and his brother asked, "Are you trying to put the Evanses into Society.''"

* Who's been telling you about them.?" asked the other.

"Mrs. Winnie," said Montague.

"What did she tell you.?"

Montague went over her recital, which his brother apparently found satisfactory. " It's not

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as serious as that," he said, answering the eariier question. "I help them a Uttle now and then."

"What do you do.P"

" Oh, advise them, mostly — tell them where to go and what to wear. When they first came to New York, they were dressed like paroquets, jou know. And —" here Oliver broke into a laugh — "I refrain from making jokes about them.- And when I hear other people abusing them, I point out that they are sure to land in the end, and will be dangerous enemies. I've got one or two wedges started for them."

"And do they pay you for doing it.?"

"You'd call it paying me, I suppose," replied the other. "The old man carries a few shares of stock for me now and then."

"Carries a few shares.?" echoed Montague, and Oliver explained the procedure. This was one of the customs which had grown up in a community where people did not have to earn their money. The recipient of the favour put up nothing and took no risks; but the other person was supposed to buy some stock for him, and then, when the stock went up, he would send a check for the "profits." Many a man who would have resented a direct offer of money, would assent pleasantly when a powerful friend offered to "carry a hundred shares for him." This was the way one offered a tip in the big world; it was useful in the case of newspaper men, whose good opinion of a stock was desired, or of politicians and legislators, whose votes might help its fortunes. When one expected to get

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into Society, one must be prepared to strew such tips about him.

"Of course," added Oliver, "what the family would really like me to do is to get the Robbie Wallings to take them up. I suppose I could get a round half miUion out of them if I could manage that."

To all of which Montague replied, "I see."

A great light had dawned upon him. So that was the way it was managed! That was why one paid thirty thousand a year for one's apartments, and thirty thousand more for a girl's clothes ! No wonder it was better to spend Christmas week at the Eldridge Devons than to labour at one's law books!

"One more question," Montague went on. "Why are you introducing me to them.?"

"Well," his brother answered, "it won't hurt you; you'll find it amusing. You see, they'd heard I had a brother; and they asked me to bring you. I couldn't keep you hidden for ever, could I?"

All this was while they were driving up town. The Evanses' place was on Riverside Drive; and when Montague got out of the cab and saw it looming up in the semi-darkness, he emitted an exclamation of wonder. It was as big as a jail!

"Oh, yes, they've got room enough," said OUver, with a laugh. I put this deal through for them — it's the old Lamson palace, you know."

They had the room; and likewise they had all the trappings of snobbery — Montague took that fact in at a glance. There were knee-

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breeches and scarlet facings and gold braid — marble balconies and fireplaces and fountains — French masters and real Flemish tapestry. The staircase of their palace was a winding one, and there was a white velvet carpet which had been specially woven for it, and had to be changed frequently; at the top of it was a white cashmere rug which had a pedigree of six centuries — and so on.

And then came the family: this tall, raw-boned, gigantic man, with weather-tanned face and straggling grey mustache — this was Jack Evans; and Mrs. Evans, short and pudgy, but with a kindly face, and not too many diamonds; and the Misses Evans, stately and slender and perfectly arrayed. "Why, they're all right!" was the thought that came to Montague.

They were all right until they opened their mouths. When they spoke, you discovered that Evans was a miner, and that his wife had been cook on a ranch; also that Anne and Mary had harsh voices, and that they never by any chance said or did anything natural.

They were escorted into the stately dining room — Henri II, with a historic mantel taken from the palace of Fontainebleau, and four great allegorical paintings of Morning, Evening, Noon, and Midnight upon the walls. There were no other guests — the table, set for six, seemed like a toy in the vast apartment. And in a sudden flash—with a start of almost terror — Montague realised what it must mean not to be in Society. To have all this splendour, and nobody to share it! To have Henri II dining rooms and Louis

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XVI parlours and Louis XIV libraries — and see them all empty! To have no one to drive with or talk with, no one to visit or play cards with — to go to the theatre and the opera and have no one to speak to! Worse than that, to be stared at and smiled at! To live in this huge place, and know that all the horde of servants, underneath their cringing deference, were sneering at you! To face that — to live in the presence of it day after day! And then, outside of your home, the ever widening circles of ridicule and contempt — Society, with all its hangers-on and parasites, its imitators and admirers!

And someone had defied all that — someone had taken up the sword and gone forth to beat down that opposition! Montague looked at this little family of four, and wondered which of them was the driving force in this most desperate emprise!

He arrived at it by a process of elimination. It could not be Evans himself. One saw that the old man was quite hopeless socially; nothing could change his big hairy hands or his lean scrawny neck, or his irresistible impulse to slide down in his chair and cross his long legs in front of him. The face and the talk of Jack Evans brought irresistibly to mind the mountain trail and the prospector's pack-mule, the smoke of camp-fires and the odour of bacon and beans. Seventeen long years the man had tramped in deserts and mountain wildernesses, and Nature had graven her impress deep into his body and soul.

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■226 THE METROPOLIS

He was very shy at this dinner; but Montague came to know him well in the course of time. And after he had come to realise that Montague was not one of the grafters, he ■opened up his heart. Evans had held on to his mine when he had found it, and he had downed the rivals who had tried to take it away from him, and he had bought the railroads who had tried to crush him — and now he had come to Wall Street to fight the men who had tried to ruin his railroads. But through it all, he had kept the heart of a woman, and the sight of real distress was unbearable to him. He was the sort of man to keep a roll of ten thousand dollar bills in his pistol pocket, and to give one away if he thought he could do it without offence. And, on the other hand, men told how once when he had seen a porter insult a woman passenger on his Une, he jumped up and pulled the bell-cord, and had the man put out on.the roadside at midnight, thirty miles from the nearest town!

No, it was the women folks, he said to Montague, with his grim laugh. It didn't trouble him at all to be called a "noovoo rich"; and when he felt like dancing a shakedown, he could take a run out to God's country. But the women folks had got the bee in their bonnet. The old man added sadly that one of the disadvantages of striking it rich was that it left the women folks with nothing to do.

Nor was it Mrs. Evans, either. "Sarey," as she was called by the head of the house, sat next to Montague at dinner; and he discovered

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that with the very least encouragement, the good lady was willing to become homelike and comfortable. Montague gave the occasion, because he was a stranger, and volunteered the opinion that New York was a shamelessly extravagant place, and hard to get along in; and Mrs. Evans took up the subject and revealed herself as a good-natured and kindly personage, who had wistful yearnings for mush and molasses, and flapjacks, and bread fried in bacon grease, and similar sensible things, while her chef was compelling her to eat fate de foie gras in aspic, and milk-fed guinea-chicks, and biscuits glacees Tor-toni. Of course she did not say that at dinner, — she made a game effort to play her part, — with the result of at least one diverting experience for Montague.

Mrs. Evans was telling him what a dreadful place she considered the city for young men; and how she feared to bring her boy here. "The men here have no morals at all," said she, and added earnestly, "I've come to the conclusion that Eastern men are naturally amphibious!"

Then, as Montague knitted his brows and looked perplexed, she added, "Don't you think so.''" And he replied, with as little delay as possible, that he had never really thought of it before.

It was not until a couple of hours later that the light dawned upon him, in the course of a conversation with Miss Anne. "We met Lady Stonebridge at luncheon to-day," said that young person. "Do you know her?"

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"No," said Montague, who had never heard of her.

"I think those aristocratic English women use the most abominable slang," continued Anne. "Have you noticed it?"

"Yes, I have," he said.

"And so utterly cynical! Do you know. Lady Stonebridge quite shocked mother — she told her she didn't believe in marriage at all, and that she thought all men were naturally polygamous!"

Later on, Montague came to know " Mrs. Sarey"; and one afternoon, sitting in her Petit Trianon drawing-room, he asked her abruptly, " Why in the world. do you want to get into Society.''" And the poor lady caught her breath, and tried to be indignant; and then, seeing that he was in earnest, and that she was cornered, broke down and confused. "It isn't me," she said, "it's the gals." (For along with the surrender went a reversion to natural speech.) " It's Mary, and more particularly Anne."

They talked it over confidentially — which was a great relief to Mrs. Sarey's soul, for she was cruelly lonely. So far as she was concerned, it was not because she wanted Society, but because Society didn't want her. She flashed up in sudden anger, and clenched her fists, declaring that Jack Evans was as good a man as walked the streets of New York — and they would acknowledge it before he got through with them, too! After that she intended to settle down at home and be comfortable, and mend her husband's socks.

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She went on to tell him what a hard road was the path of glory. There were hundreds of people ready to know them — but oh, such a riflfraff! They might fill up their home with the hangers-on and the yellow, but no, they could wait. They had learned a lot since they set out. One very aristocratic lady had invited them to dinner, and their hopes had been high — but alas, while they were sitting by the fireplace, someone admired a thirty-thousand-dollar emerald ring which Mrs. Evans had on her finger, and she had taken it off and passed it about among the company, and somewhere it had vanished completely! And another person had invited Mary to a bridge-party, and though she had played hardly at all, her hostess had quietly informed her that she had lost a thousand dollars. And the great Lady Stonebridge had actually sent for her and told her that she could introduce her in some of the very best circles, if only she was sVilling to lose always! Mrs. Evans had possessed a very homely Irish name before she was married; and Lady Stone-bridge had got five thousand dollars from her to use some great infiuence she possessed in the Royal College of Heralds, and prove that she was descended directly from the noble old family of Magennis, who had been the lords of Iveagh, way back in the fourteenth century. And now OUver had told them that this imposing charter would not help them in the least!

In the process of elimination, there were the Misses Evans left. Montague's friends made many jests when they heard that he had met them

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— asking him if he meant to settle down. Major Venable went so far as to assure him that there was not the least doubt that either of the girls would take him in a second. Montague laughed, and answered that Mary was not so bad — she had a sweet face and was good-natured; but also, she was two years younger than Anne; and he could not get over the thought that two years more might make another Anne of her.

For it was Anne who was the driving force of the family! Anne who had planned the great campaign, and selected the Lamson palace, and pried the family loose from the primeval rocks of Nevada! She was cold as an iceberg, tireless, pitiless to others as to herself; for seventeen years her father had wandered and dug among the mountains; and for seventeen years, if need be, she would dig beneath the walls of the fortress of Society!

After Montague had had his heart to heart talk with the mother. Miss Anne Evans became very haughty toward him; whereby he knew that the old lady had told about it, and that the daughter resented his presumption. But to Oliver she laid bare her soul, and Oliver would come and tell his brother about it: how she plotted and planned and studied, and brought new schemes to him every week. She had some of the real people bought over to secret sympathy with her; if there was some especial favour which she asked for, she would set to work with the good-natured old man, and the person would have some important money service done him. She had the people of Society

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all marked — she was learning all their weaknesses, and the underground passages of their lives, and working patiently to find the key to her problem — some one family which was socially impregnable, but whose finances were in such a shape that they would receive the proposition to take up the Evanses, and definitely put them in. Montague used to look back upon all this with wonder and amusement — from those days in the not far distant future, when the papers had cable descriptions of the gowns of the Duchess of Arden, wee Evans, who was the bright particular star of the London social season!

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CHAPTER XIV

MONTAGUE had written a reluctant letter to Major Thorne, telling him that he had been unable to interest anyone in his proposition, and that he was not in position to undertake it himself. Then, according to his brother's injunction, he left his money in the bank, and waited. There would be "something doing" soon, said Oliver.

And as they drove home from the Evanses', Oliver served notice upon him that this event might be expected any day. He was very mysterious about it, and would answer none of his brother's questions — except to say that it had nothing to do with the people they had just visited.

"I suppose," Montague remarked, "you have not failed to realise that Evans might play you false."

And the other laughed, echoing the words, "Might do it!" Then he went on to tell the tale of the great railroad builder of the West, whose daughter had been married, with elaborate festivities; and some of the young men present, thinking to find him in a sentimental mood, had asked him for his views about the market. He advised them to buy the stock of his road; and they formed a pool and bought, and as fast as they bought, he sold — until the little venture cost the boys a total of seven million and a half !

"No, no," Oliver added. "I have never put

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up a dbllar for anything of Evans's, and I never shall. — They are simply a side issue, anyway," he added carelessly.

A couple of mornings later, while Montague was at breakfast, his brother called him up and said that he was coming round, and would go down town with him. Montague knew at once that that meant something serious, for he had never before known his brother to be awake so early.

They took a cab; and then Oliver explained. The moment had arrived — the time to take the plunge, and come up with a fortune. He could not tell much about it, for it was a matter upon which he stood pledged to absolute secrecy. There were but four people in the country who knew about it. It was the chance of a lifetime — and in four or five hours it would be gone. Three times before it had come to Oliver, and each time he had multiplied his capital several times; that he had not made millions was simply because he did not have enough money. His brother must take his word for this and simply put himself into his hands.

" What is it you want me to do.''" asked Montague, gravely.

'I want you to take every dollar you have, or that you can lay your hands on this morning, and turn it over to me to buy stocks with."

"To buy on margin, you mean.?"

" Of course I mean that," said Oliver. Then, as he saw his brother frown, he added, "Understand me, I have absolutely certain information as to how a certain stock will behave to-day."

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"The best judges of a stock often make mistakes in such matters," said Montague.

"It is not a question of any person's judgment," was the reply. " It is a question of knowledge. The stock is to be made to behave so."

' But how can you know that the person who intends to make it behave may not be lying to you.?"

" My information does not come from that person, but from a person who has no such interest — who, on the contrary, is in on the deal with me, and gains only as I gain."

"Then, in other words," said Montague, "your information is stolen.?"

"Everything in Wall Street is stolen," was Oliver's concise reply.

There was a long silence, ■vs^hile the cab rolled swiftly on its way. " Well ?" Oliver asked at last.

"I can imagine," said Montague, "how a man might intend to move a certain stock, and think that he had the power, and yet find that he was mistaken. There are so many forces, so many chances to be considered — it seems to me you must be taking a risk."

Oliver laughed. "You talk like a child," was his reply. "Suppose that I were in absolute control of a corporation, and that I chose to run it for purposes of market manipulation, don't you thmk I might come pretty near knowing what its stock was going to do.?"

"Yes," said Montague, slowly, "if such a thing as that were conceivable."

"If it were conceivable !" laughed his brother. "And now suppose that I had a confidential

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man — a secretary, we'll say — and I paid him twenty thousand a year, and he saw chances to make a hundred thousand in an hour — don't you think he might conceivably try it?"

"Yes," said Montague, "he might. But where do you come in?"

"Well, if the man were going to do anything worth while, he'd need capital, would he not? And he'd hardly dare to look for any money in the Street, where a thousand eyes would be watching him. What more natural than to look out for some person who is in Society and has the ear of private parties with plenty of cash ? "

And Montague sat in deep thought. "I see," he said slowly; "I see!" Then, fixing his eyes upon Oliver, he exclaimed, earnestly, "One thing more!"

" Don't ask me any more," protested the other. "I told you I was pledged—"

"You must tell me this," said Montague. "Does Robbie Walling know about it?"

"He does not," was the reply. But Montague had known his brother long and intimately, and he could read things in his eyes. He knew that that was a lie. He had solved the mystery at last!

Montague knew that he had come to a parting of the ways. He did not like this kind of thing — he had not come to New York to be a stock-gambler. But what a difficult thing it would be to say so; and how unfair it was to be confronted with such an issue, and compelled to decide in a few minutes in a cab !

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He had put himself in his brother's hands, and mow he was under obligations to him, which he "Could not pay off. Oliver had paid all his expenses; he was doing everything for him. He liad made all his difficulties his own, and all in frankness and perfect trust — upon the assumption that his brother would play the game with him. And now, at the critical moment, he was to face about, and say: "I do not like the game. I do not approve of your life!" Such a painful thing it is to have a higher moral code than one's friends!

If he refused, he saw that he would have to face a complete break; he could not go on living in the world to which he had been introduced. Fifty thousand had seemed an enormous fee, yet even a week or two had sufficed for it to come to seem inadequate. He would have to have many such fees, if they were to go on living at their present rate; and if Alice were to have a social career, and entertain her friends. And to ask Alice to give up now, and retire, would be even harder than to face his brother here in the •cab.

Then came the temptation. Life was a battle, and this was the way it was being fought. If he rejected the opportunity, others would seize it; in fact, by refusing, he would be handing it to them. This great man, whoever he might be, who was manipulating stocks for his own convenience — could anyone in his senses reject a chance to wrench from him some part of his spoils.'' Montague saw the impulse of refusal dying away within him.

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"Well?" asked his brother, finally.

" Oliver," said the other, "don't you think that I ought to know more about it, so that I can judge?"

" xou could not judge, even if I told you all," said Oliver. "It would take you a long time to become familiar with the circumstances, as I am. You must take my word; I know it is certain and safe."

Then suddenly he unbuttoned his coat, and took out some papers, and handed his brother a telegram. It was dated Chicago, and read, "Guest is expected immediately. Henry." "That means, 'Buy Transcontinental this morning,'" said Oliver.

'I see," said the other. "Then the man is in Chicago?"

"No," was the reply. "That is his wife. He wires to her."

"—How much money have you?" asked Oliver, after a pause.

"I've most of the fifty thousand," the other answered, " and about thirty thousand we brought with us."

"How much can you put your hands on?"

"Why, I could get all of it; but part of the money is mother's, and I would not touch that.'*

The younger man was about to remonstrate, but Montague stopped him. "I will put up the fifty thousand I liave earned," he said. "I dare not risk any more."

Oliver shrugged his shoulders. "As you please," he said. "You may never have another such chance in your life."

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«38 THE METROPOLIS

He dropped the subject, or at least he probably tried to. Within a few minutes, however, he was back at it again, with the result that, by the time they reached the banking-district, Montague had agreed to draw sixty thousand.

They stopped at his bank. " It isn't open yet," said Oliver, ' but the paying teller will oblige you. Tell him you want it before the Exchange opens."

Montague went in and got his money, in six new, crisp ten-thousand-doUar bills. He buttoned them up in his inmost pocket, wondering a little, incidentally, at the magnificence of the place, and at the swift routine manner in which the clerk took in and paid out such sums as this. Then they drove to Oliver's bank, and he drew a hundred and twenty thousand; and then he paid off the cab, and they strolled down Broadway into Wall Street, It lacked a quarter of an hour of the time of opening of the Exchange; and a stream of prosperous-looking men were pouring in from all the cars and ferries to their offices.

"Where are your brokers.''" Montague inquired.

" I don't have any brokers — at least not for a matter such as this," said Oliver. And he stopped in front of one of the big buildings. " In there," he said, "are the officers of Hammond and Streeter — second floor to your left. Go there and ask for a member of the firm, and introduce yourself under an assumed name —"

"What! " gasped Montague.

" Of course, man — you would not dream of giving your own name! What difference will that make.?"

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"I never thought of doing such a thing," said the other.

" Well, think of it now.'' But Montague shook his head. "I would not do that," he said.

Oliver shrugged his shoulders. "All right," he said; "tell him you don't care to give your name. They're a little shady—they'll take your money."

"Suppose they won't.?" asked the other.

"Then wait outside for me, and I'll take you somewhere else."

;'What shall I buy.?"

"Ten thousand shares of Transcontinental Common at the opening price; and tell them t» buy on the scale up, and to raise the stop; also to take your orders to sell over the 'phone. Then wait there until I come for you."

Montague set his teeth together and obeyed orders. Inside of the door marked Hammond and Streeter a pleasant-faced young man advanced to meet him, and led him to a grey-haired and affable gentleman, Mr. Streeter. And Montague introduced himself as a stranger in town, from the South, and wishing to buy some stock. Mr. Streeter led him into an inner office and seated himself at a desk and drew some papers in front of him. "Your name, please.?" he asked.

" I don't care to give my name," replied the other. And Mr. Streeter put down his pen.

" Not give your name.?" he said.

"No," said Montague, quietly.

"Why.?" — said Mr. Streeter — "I don't understand—"

"I am a stranger in town," said Montague^

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MO THE METROPOLIS

*'and not accustomed to dealing in stocks. I should prefer to remain unknown."

The man eyed him sharply. "Where do you •come from?" he asked.

"From Mississippi," was the reply.

"And have you a residence in New York?"

"At a hotel," said Montague.

"You have to give some name," said the other.

" Any will do," said Montague. " John Smith, if you like."

"We never do anything Uke this," said the broker. "We require that our customers be introduced. There are rules of the Exchange

— there are rules —"

"I am sorry," said Montague; "this would be a cash transaction."

"How many shares do you want to buy?"

" Ten thousand," was the reply.

Mr. Streeter became more serious. "That is a large order," he said.

Montague said nothing.

"What do you wish to buy?" was the next •question.

"Transcontinental Common," he replied.

"Well," said the other, after another pause,

— " we will try to accommodate you. But you "will have to consider it — er —"

" Strictly confidential," said Montague.

So Mr. Streeter made out the papers, and Montague, looking them over, discovered that they called for one hundred thousand dollars.

* That is a mistake," he said. "I have only sixty thousand."

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"Oh," said the other, "we shall certainly have to charge you a ten per cent margin."

Montague was not prepared for this contingency; but he did some mental arithmetic. 'What is the present price of the stock.?" he asked.

"Fifty-nine and five-eighths," was the reply.

" Then sixty thousand dollars is more than ten per cent of the market price," said Montague.

"Yes," said Mr. Streeter. "But in dealing: with a stranger we shall certainly have to put a * stop loss' order at four points above, and that would leave you only two points of safety — surely not enough."

"I see," said Montague — and he had a, sudden appalling realisation of the wild game-which his brother had planned for him.

"Whereas," Mr. Streeter continued, persuasively, "if you put up ten per cent, you will have six points."

" Very well," said the other, promptly. " Them please buy me six thousand shares.'

So they closed the deal, and the papers were signed, and Mr. Streeter took the six new, crisp ten-thousand-dollar bills.

Then he escorted him to the outer office, remarking pleasantly on the way, "I hope you're-well advised. We're inclined to be bearish upon Transcontinental ourselves — the situation looks: rather squally."

These words were not worth the breath it. took to say them; but Montague was not aware of this, and felt a painful start within. But he answered, carelessly, that one must take his.

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chance, and sat down in one of the customers' chairs. Hammond and Streeter's was Uke a little lecture-hall, with rows of seats and a big blackboard in front, with the initials of the most important stocks in columns, and yesterday's closing prices above, on little green cards. At one side was a ticker, with two attendants awaiting the opening click.

In the seats were twenty or thirty men, old and young; most of them regular habitues, victims of the fever of the Street. Montague watched them, catching snatches of their whispered conversation, with its intricate and disagreeable slang. He felt intensely humiliated a.nd uncomfortable — for he had got the fever of the Street into his own veins, and he could not conquer it. There were nasty shivers running up and down his spine, and his hands were cold.

He stared at the little figures, fascinated; they stood for some vast and tremendous force outside, which could not be controlled or even comprehended, — some merciless, annihilating force, like the lightning or the tornado. And he had put himself at the mercy of it; it might do its will with him! "Tr. C. 59f" read the little pasteboard; and he had only six points of safety. If at any time in the day that figure should be changed to read "53f" —then every dollar of Montague's sixty thousand would be gone- for ever! The great fee that he had worked so hard for and rejoiced so greatly over — that would be all gone, and a slice out of his inheritance besides!

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A boy put into his hand a Uttle four-page paper — one of the countless news-sheets which ainerent houses and interests distributed free for advertising or other purposes; and a heading "Transcontinental" caught his eye, among the paragraphs in the Day's Events. He read: " The directors' meeting of the Transcontinental R.R. will be held at noon. It is confidently predicted that the quarterly dividend will be passed, as it has been for the last three quarters. There is great dissatisfaction among the stockholders. The stock has been decidedly weak, with no apparent inside support; it fell oflf three points just before closing yesterday, upon the news of further proceedings by Western state officials, and widely credited rumours of dissensions among the directors, with renewed opposition to the control of the Hopkins interests."

Ten o'clock came and went, and the ticker began its long journey. There was intense activity in Transcontinental, many thousands of shares changing hands, and the price swaying back and forth. When Oliver came in, in half an hour, it stood at 59f.

"That's all right," said he. "Our time will not come till afternoon."

"But suppose we are wiped out before afternoon.?" said the other.

"That is impossible," answered Ohver. "There will be big buying all the morning."

They sat for a while, nervous and restless. Then, by way of breaking the monotony, Ohver suggested that his brother might like to see the

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"Street." They went around the corner to Broad Street. Here at the head stood the Sub-treasury building, with all the gold of the government inside, and a GatUng gun in the tower. The public did not know it was there, but the financial men knew it, and it seemed as if they had huddled all their oflfices and banks and safe-deposit vaults under its shelter. Here, far^ underground, were hidden the two hundred millions of securities of the Oil Trust — in a huge six-hundred-ton steel vault, with a door so delicately poised that a finger could swing it on its hinges. And opposite to this was the white Grecian building of the Stock Exchange. Down the street were throngs of men within a roped arena, pushing, shouting, jostling; this was ' the curb," where one could buy or sell small blocks of stock, and all the wild-cat mining and oil stocks which were not listed by the Exchange. Rain or shine, these men were always here; and in the windows of the neighbouring buildings stood others shouting quotations to them through megaphones, or signalling in deaf and dumb language. Some of these brokers wore coloured hats, so that they could be distinguished; some had offices far off, where men sat all day with strong glasses trained upon them. Everywhere was the atmosphere of speculation—the restless, feverish eyes; the quick, nervous gestures; the haggard, care-worn faces. For in this game every man was pitted against every other man; and the dice were loaded so that nine out of every ten were doomed in advance to ruin and defeat.

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They procured passes to the visitors' gallery of the Exchange. From here one looked down into a room one or two hundred feet square, its floor covered with a snowstorm of torn pieces of paper, and its air a babel of shouts and cries. Here were gathered perhaps two thousand men and boys; some were lounging and talking, but most were crowded about the various trading-posts, pushing, climbing over each other, leaping up, waving their hands and calling aloud. A "seat" in this exchange was worth about ninety-five thousand dollars, and so no one of these men was poor; but yet they came, day after day, to play their parts in this sordid arena, "seeking in sorrow for each other's joy": inventing a thousand petty tricks to outwit and deceive each other; rejoicing in a thousand petty triumphs; and spending their lives, like the waves upon the shore, a very symbol of human futiUty. Now and then a sudden impulse would seize them, and they would become like howling demons, surging about one spot, shrieking, gasping, clawing each other's clothing to pieces; and the spectator shuddered, seeing them as the victims of some strange and dreadful enchantment, which bound them to struggle and torment each other until they were worn out and grey.

But one felt these things only dimly, when he had put all his fortune into Transcontinental Common. For then he had sold his own soul to the enchanter, and the spell was upon him, and he hoped and feared and agonised with the struggling throng. Montague had no need to

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ask which was his "post"; for a mob of a hundred men were packed about it, with little whirls and eddies here and there on the outside. "Something doing to-day all right," said a man in his ear.

It was interesting to watch; but there was one diflSculty — there were no quotations provided for the spectators. So the sight of this activity merely set them on edge with anxiety — something must be happening to their stock! Even Oliver was visibly nervous — after all, in the surest cases, the game was a dangerous one; there might be a big failure, or an assassination, or an earthquake! They rushed out and made for the nearest broker's office, where a glance at the board showed them Transcontinental at 60. They drew a long breath, and sat down again to wait.

That was about half-past eleven. At a quarter to twelve the stock went up an eighth, and then a quarter, and then another eighth. The two gripped their hands in excitement. Had the time come.?

Apparently it had. A minute later the stock leaped to 61, on large buying. Then it went three-eighths more. A buzz of excitement ran through the office, and the old-timers sat up in their seats. The stock went another quarter.

Montague heard a man behind him say to his neighbour, "What does it mean.?"

' God knows," was the answer; but Oliver whispered in his brother's ear, "I know what it means. The insiders are buying."

Somebody was buying, and buying furiously.

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The ticker seemed to set all other business aside and give its attention to the trading in Transcontinental. It was like a base-ball game, when one side begins to pile up runs, and the man in the coacher's box chants exultantly, and the dullest spectator is stirred — since no man can be indifferent to success. And as the stock went higher and higher, a little wave of excitement mounted with it, a murmur running through the room, and a thrill passing from person to person. Some watched, wondering if it would last, and if they had not better take on a little; then another point would be scored, and they would wish they had done it, and hesitate whether to do it now. But to others, like the Montagues, who "had some," it was victory, glorious and thrilling; their pulses leaped faster with every new change of the figures; and between times they reckoned up their gains, and hung between hope and dread for the new gains which were on the way, but not yet in sight.

There was a httle lull, and the boys who tended the board had a chance to rest. The stock was above 66; at which price, owing to the device of "pyramiding," Montague was on "velvet," to use the picturesque phrase of the Street. His earnings amounted to sixty thousand dollars, and even if the stock were to fall and he were to be sold out, he would lose noth-

He wished to sell and realise his profits; but his brother gripped him fast by the arm. "No I no!" he said. "It hasn't really come yet!"

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Some went out to lunch — to a restaurant where they could have a telephone on their table, so as to keep in touch with events. But the Montagues had no care about eating; they sat picturing the directors in session, and speculating upon a score of various eventualities. Things might yet go wrong, and all their profits would vanish like early snow-flakes — and all their capital with them. Oliver shook like a leaf, but he would not stir. "Stay game!" he whispered.

He took out his watch, and glanced at it. It was after two o'clock. "It may go over till to-morrow !" he muttered. — But then suddenly came the storm.

The ticker recorded a rise in the price of Transcontinental of a point and a half, upon a

Eurchase of five thousand shares; and then alf a point for two thousand more. After that it never stopped. It went a point at a time; it went ten points in about fifteen minutes. And babel broke loose in the oflSce, and in several thousand other ofiices in the Street, and spread to others all over the world. Montague had got up, and was moving here and there, because the tension was unendurable; and at the door of an inner office he heard someone at the telephone exclaiming, " For the love of God, can't you find out what's the matter.?"—A moment later a man rushed in, breathless and wild-eyed, and his voice rang through the office, " The directors have declared a quarterly dividend of three per cent and an extra dividend of two!"

And Oliver caught his brother by the arm

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and started for the door with him. "Get to your broker's," he said. "And if the stock has stopped moving, sell; and sell in any case before the close." And then he dashed away to his own headquarters.

At about half after three o'clock, Oliver came into Hammond and Streeter's, breathless, and with his hair and clothing dishevelled. He was half beside himself with exultation; and Montague was scarcely less wrought up — in fact he felt quite limp after the strain he had been through.

"What price did you get.?*" his brother inquired; and he answered, "An average of 78f." There had been another sharp rise at the end, and he had sold all his stock without checking the advance.

"I got five-eighths," said Oliver. "O ye gods!"

There were some unhappy "shorts" in the office; Mr. Streeter was one of them. It was bitterness and gall to them to see the radiant faces of the two lucky ones; but the two did not even see this. They went out, half dancing, and had a drink or two to steady their nerves.

They would not actually get their money until the morrow; but Montague figured a profit of a trifle under a qtiarter of a million for himself. Of this about twenty thousand would go to make up the share of his unknown informant; the balance he considered would be an ample reward for his six hours' work that day.

His brother had won more than twice as

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much. But as they drove up home, talking it over in awe-stricken whispers, and pledging themselves to absolute secrecy, Oliver suddenly clenched his fist and struck his knee.

"By God!" he exclaimed. "If I hadn't been a fool and tried to save an extra margin, I could have had a million!"

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CHAPTER XV

AFTER such a victory one felt in a mood for Christmas festivities, — for music and dancing and all beautiful and happy things.

Such a thing, for instance, as Mrs. Winnie, when she came to meet him; clad in her best automobile coat, a thing of purest snowy ermine, so truly gorgeous that wherever she went, people turned and stared and caught their breath. Mrs. Winnie was a picture of joyful health, with a glow in her rich complexion, and a sparkle in her black eyes.

She sat in her big touring-car — in which one could afford to wear ermine. It was a little private self-moving hotel; in the limousine were seats for six persons, with revolving easy-chairs, and berths for sleeping, and a writing-desk and a wash-stand, and a beautiful electric chandelier to light it at night. Its trimmings were of South American mahogany, and its upholstering of Spanish and Morocco leathers; it had a telephone with which one spoke to the driver; an ice-box and a lunch hamper — in fact, one might have spent an hour discovering new gun-cracks in this magic automobile. It had been made especially for Mrs. Winnie a couple of years ago, and the newspapers said it had cost thirty thousand dollars; it had then been quite a novelty, but now "everybody" was getting

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them. In this car one might sit at ease, and laugh and chat, and travel at the rate of an express train; and with never a jar or a quiver, nor the faintest sound of any sort.

The streets of the city sped by them as if by enchantment. They went through the park, and out Riverside Drive, and up the river-road which runs out of Broadway all the way to Albany. It was a macadamised avenue, lined with beautiful and stately homes. As one went farther yet, he came to the great country estates — a whole district of hundreds of square miles given up to them. There were forests and lakes and streams; there were gardens and greenhouses filled with rare plants and flowers, and parks with deer browsing, and peacocks and lyre-birds strutting about. The road wound in and out among hills, the surfaces of which would be one unbroken lawn; and upon the highest points stood palaces of every conceivable style and shape.

One might find these great domains anywhere around the city, at a distance of from thirty to sixty miles; there were two or three hundred of them, and incredible were the sums of money which had been spent upon their decoration. One saw an artificial lake of ten thousand acres, made upon land which had cost several hundred dollars an acre; one saw gardens with ten thousand rose-bushes, and a quarter of a million dollars' worth of lilies from Japan; there was one estate in which had been planted a million dollars' worth of rare trees, imported from all over the world. Some rich

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men, who had nothing else to amuse them, would make their estates over and over again, changing the view about their homes as one changes the scenery in a play. Over in New Jersey the Hegans were building a castle upon a mountain-top, and had built a special railroad simply to carry the materials. Here, also, was the estate of the tobacco king, upon which three million dollars had been spent before the plans of the mansion had even been drawn; there were artificial lakes and streams, and fantastic bridges and statuary, and scores of little model plantations and estates, according to the whim of the owner. And here in the Pocantico Hills was the estate of the oil king, about four square miles, with thirty miles of model driveways; many car loads of rare plants had been imported for its gardens, and it took six hundred men to keep it in order. There was a golf course, a little miniature Alps, upon which the richest man in the world pursued his lost health, with armed guards and detectives patrolling the place all day, and a tower with a search-light, whereby at night he could flood the grounds with light by pressing a button.

In one of these places lived the heir of the

freat house of Devon. His cousin dwelt in /urope, saying that America was not a fit place for a gentleman to live in. Each of them owned a hundred million dollars' worth of New York real estate, and drew their tribute of rents from the toil of the swarming millions of the city. And always, according to the policy of the family, they bought new real estate. They

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were directors of the great railroads tributary to the city, and in touch with the political machines, and in every other way in position to know what was under way: if a new subway were built to set the swarming millions free, the millions would find the land all taken up, and apartment-houses newly built for them — and the Devons were the owners. They had a score of the city's greatest hotels — and also slum tenements, and saloons and dives in the Tenderloin. They did not even have to know what they owned; they did not have to know anything, or do anything — they lived in their palaces, at home or abroad, and in their offices in the city the great rent-gathering machine ground on.

Eldridge Devon's occupation was playing with his country-place and his automobiles. He had recently sold all his horses, and turned his stables into a garage, equipped with a score or so of cars; he was always getting a new one, and discussing its merits. As to Hudson Cliff, the estate, he had conceived the brilliant idea of establishing a gentleman's country-place which should be self-supporting — that is to say, which should furnish the luxuries and necessities of its owner's table for no more than it would have cost to buy them. Considering the prices usually paid, this was no astonishing feat, but Devon took a child's delight in it; he showed Montague his greenhouses, filled with rare flowers and fruits, and his model dairy, with marble stables and nickel plumbing, and attendants in white uniforms and rubber gloves. He was a

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short and very stout gentleman with red cheeks, and his conversation was not brilliant.

To Hudson Cliff came many of Montague's earlier acquaintances, and others whom he had not met before. They amused themselves in all the ways with which he had become familiar at house-parties; likewise on Christmas Eve there were festivities for the children, and on Christmas night a costume ball, very beautiful and stately. Many came from New York to attend this, and others from the neighbourhood; and in returning calls, Montague saw others of these hill-top mansions.

Also, and most important of all, they played bridge — as they had played at every function which he had attended so far. Here Mrs. Winnie, who had rather taken him up, and threatened to supplant Oliver as his social guide and chaperon, insisted that no more excuses would be accepted; and so for two mornings he sat with her in one of the sun-parlours, and diligently put his mind upon the game. As he

Eroved an apt pupil, he was then advised that e might take a trial plunge. And so Montague came into touch with a new social phenomenon; perhaps on the whole the most significant and soul-disturbing phenomenon which Society had exhibited to him. He had just had the experience of getting a great deal of money without earning it, and was fresh from the disagreeable memories of it — the trembling and suspense, the burning lustful greed, the terrible nerve-devouring excitement. He had hoped that he would not soon have to

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go through such an experience again — and here was the prospect of an endless dalliance with it!

For that was the meaning of bridge; it was a penalty which people were paying for getting their money without earning it. The disease got into their blood, and they could no longer live without the excitement of gain and the hope of gain. So after their labours were over, when they were supposed to be resting and enjoying themselves, they would get together and torment themselves with an imitation struggle, mimicking the grim and dreadful gamble of business. Down in the Street, Oliver had pointed out to his brother a celebrated "plunger," who had sometimes won six or eight millions in a single day; and that man would play at stocks all morning, and "play the ponies" in the afternoon, and then spend the evening in a millionaires' gambling-house. And so it was with the bridge fiends.

It was a social plague; it had run through all Society, high and low. It had destroyed conversation and all good-fellowship — it would end by destroying even common decency, and turning the best people into vulgar gamblers. — Thus spoke Mrs. Billy Alden, who was one of the guests; and Montague thought that Mrs. Billy ought to know, for she herself was playing all the time.

Mrs. Billy did not like Mrs. Winnie Duval; and the beginning of the conversation was her inquiry why he let that woman corrupt him. Then the good lady went on to tell him what

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bridge had come to be; how people played it on the trains all the way from New York to San Francisco; how they had tables in their autos, and played while they were touring over the world. "Once," said she, "I took a party to see the America's Cup races off Sandy Hook; and when we got back to the pier, someone called, ' Who won ?' And the answer was, 'Mrs. Billy's ahead, but we're going on this evening.' I took a party of friends through the Mediterranean and up the Nile, and we passed Venice and Cairo and the Pyramids and the Suez Canal, and they never once looked up — they were playing bridge. And you think I'm joking, but I mean just literally what I say. I know a man who was travelling from New York to Philadelphia, and got into a game with some strangers, and rode all the way to Palm Beach to finish it!"

Montague heard later of a well-known society leader who was totally incapacitated that winter, from too much bridge at Newport; and she was passing the winter at Hot Springs and Palm Beach — and playing bridge there. They played it even in sanitariums, to which they had been driven by nervous breakdown. It was an occupation so exhausting to the physique of women that physicians came to know the symptoms of it, and before they diagnosed a case, they would ask, "Do you play bridge?" It had destroyed the last remnants of the Sabbath — it was a universal custom to have card-parties on that day.

It was a very expensive game, as they played

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it in Society; one might easily win or lose several thousand dollars in an evening, and there were many who could not afford this. If one did not play, he would be dropped from the lists of those invited; and when one entered a game, etiquette required him to stay in until it was finished. So one heard of young girls who had pawned their family plate, or who had sold their honour, to pay their bills at the game; and all Society knew of one youth who had robbed his hostess of her jewels and pawned them, and then taken her the tickets — telling her that her guests had robbed him. There were women received in the best Society, who lived as adventuresses pure and simple, upon their skill at the game; hostesses would invite rich guests and fleece them. Montague never forgot the sense of amazement and dismay with which he listened while first Mrs. Winnie and then his brother wai'ned him that he must avoid playing with a certain aristocratic dame whom he met in this most aristocratic household — because she was such a notorious cheater!

"My dear fellow," laughed his brother, when he protested, "we have a phrase *to cheat at cards like a woman.'" And then Oliver went on to tell him of his own first experience at cards in Society, when he had played poker with several charming young debutantes; they would call their hands and take the money without showing their cards, and he had been too gallant to ask to see them. But later he learned that this was a regular practice, and so he never played poker with women. And

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Oliver pointed out one of these girls to his brother — sitting, as beautiful as a picture and as cold as marble, with a half-smoked cigarette on the edge of the table, and whiskey and soda and glasses of cracked ice beside her. Later on, as he chanced to be reading a newspaper, his brother leaned over his shoulder and pointed out another of the symptoms of the craze — an advertisement headed, Your luck will change." It gave notice that at Rosenstein's Parlours, just off Fifth Avenue, one might borrow money upon expensive gowns and furs !

All during the ten days of this house-party, Mrs. Winnie devoted herself to seeing that Montague had a good time; Mrs. Winnie sat beside him at table — he found that somehow a convention had been established which assigned him to Mrs. Winnie as a matter of course. Nobody said anything to him about it, but knowing how relentlessly the affairs of other people were probed and analysed, he began to feel exceedingly uncomfortable.

There came a time when he felt quite smothered by Mrs. Winnie; and immediately after lunch one day he broke away and went for a long walk by himself. This was the occasion of his meeting with an adventure.

An inch or two of snow had fallen, and lay gleaming in the sunlight. The air was keen, and he drank deep draughts of it, and went striding away over the hills for an hour or so. There was a gale blowing, and as he came over the summits it would strike him, and he would

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see the river white with foam. And then down in the valleys again all would be still.

Here, in a thickly wooded place, Montague's attention was arrested suddenly by a peculiar sound, a heavy thud, which seemed to shake the earth. It suggested a distant explosion, and he stopped for a moment and then went on, gazing ahead. He passed a turn, and then he saw a great tree which had fallen directly across the road.

He went on, thinking that this was what he had heard. But as he came nearer, he saw his mistake. Beyond the tree lay something else, and he began to run toward it. It was two wheels of an automobile, sticking up into the air.

He sprang upon the tree-trunk, and in one glance he saw the whole story. A big touring-car had swept round the sharp turn, and swerved to avoid the unexpected obstruction, and so turned a somersault into the ditch.

Montague gave a thrill of horror, for there was the form of a man pinned beneath the body of the car. He sprang toward it, but a second glance made him stop — he saw that blood had gushed from the man's mouth and soaked the snow all about. His chest was visibly crushed flat, and his eyes were dreadful, half-started from their sockets.

For a moment Montague stood staring, as if turned to stone. Then from the other side of the car came a moan, and he ran toward the sound. A second man lay in the ditch, moving feebly. Montague sprang to help him.

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The man wore a heavy bearskin coat. Montague lifted him, and saw that he was a very elderly person, with a cut across his forehead, and a face as white as chalk. The other helped him to a position with his back against the bank, and he opened his eyes and groaned.

Montague knelt beside him, watching his breathing. He had a sense of utter helplessness — there was nothing he could think of to do, save to unbutton the man's coat and keep wiping the blood from his face.

' Some whiskey," the stranger moaned. Montague answered that he had none; but the other replied that there was some in the car.

The slope of the bank was such that Montague could crawl under, and find the compartment with the bottle in it. The old man drank some, and a little colour came back to his face. As the other watched him, it came to him that this face was familiar; but he could not place it.

"How many were there with you.?' Montague asked; and the man answered, " Only one."

Montague went over and made certain that the other man — who was obviously the chauffeur— was dead. Then he hurried down the road, and dragged some brush out into the middle of it, where it could be seen from a distance by any other automobile that came along; after which he went back to the stranger, and bound his handkerchief about his forehead to stop the bleeding from the cut.

The old man's lips were tightly set, as if he were suffering great pain. "I m done for!" he moaned, again and again.

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THE METROPOLIS

"Where are you hurt?" Montague asked.

" I don't know," he gasped. " But it's finished me! I know it — it's the last straw."

Then he closed his eyes and lay back. " Can't you get a doctor?" he asked.

"There are no houses very near," said Montague. "But I can run—"

"No, no!" the other interrupted, anxiously. " Don't leave me ! Someone will come. — Oh, that fool of a chauffeur — why couldn't he go slow when I told him ? That's always the way with them — they're always trying to show off."

"The man is dead," said Montague, quietly.

The other started up on his elbow. "Dead !" he gasped.

"Yes," said Montague. "He's under the car."

The old man's eyes had started wild with fright; and he caught Montague by the arm. "Dead!" he said. "O my God — and it might have been me!"

There was a moment's pause. The stranger caught his breath, and whispered again: " Tm done for! I can't stand it! it's too much !"

Montague had noticed when he lifted the man that he was very frail and sUght of build. Now he could feel that the hand that held his arm was trembling violently. It occurred to him that perhaps the man was not really hurt, but that his nerves had been upset by the shock.

And he felt certain of this a moment later, when the stranger suddenly leaned forward, clutching him with redoubled intensity, and staring at him with his wide, horror-stricken eyes.

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" Do you know what it means to be afraid of death?" he panted. "Do you know what it means to be afraid of death?"

Then, without waiting for a reply, he rushed on — " No, no ! You can't! you can't! I don't believe any man knows it as I do! Think of it — for ten years I've never known a minute when I wasn't afraid of death! It follows me around — it won't let me be! It leaps out at me in places, like this! And when I escape it, I can hear it laughing at me — for it knows I can't get away!"

The old man caught his breath with a choking sob. He was clinging to Montague hke a frightened child, and staring with a wild, hunted look upon his face. Montague sat transfixed.

"Yes," the other rushed on, "that's the truth, as God hears me! And it's the first time I've ever spoken it in my life! I have to hide it — because men would laugh at me — they pretend they're not afraid! But I lie awake all night, and it's like a fiend that sits by my bedside! I lie and listen to my own heart — I feel it beating, and I think how weak it is, and what thin walls it has, and what a wretched, helpless thing it is to have your life depend on that! — You don't know what that is, I suppose."

Montague shook his head.

"You're young, you see," said the other. " You have health — everybody has health, except me ! And everybody hates me — I haven't got a friend in the world !"

Montague was quite taken aback by the suddenness of this outburst. He tried to stop it,

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for he felt almost indecent in listening — it was not fair to take a man off his guard like this. But the stranger could not be stopped — he was completely unstrung, and his voice grew louder and louder.

"It's every word of it true," he exclaimed wildly. "And I can't stand it any more — I can't stand anything any more. I was young and strong once — I could take care of myself; and I said: I'll make money, I'll be master of other men! But I was a fool — I forgot my health. And now all the money on earth can't do me any good! I'd give ten million dollars to-day for a body like any other man's — and this — this is what I have!"

He struck his hands against his bosom. "Look at it!" he cried, hysterically. "This is what I've got to live in! It won't digest any food, and I can't keep it warm — there's nothing right with it! How would you like to lie awake at night and say to yourself that your teeth were decaying and you couldn't help it — your hair was falling out, and nobody could stop it .'* You're old and worn out — falling to pieces; and Teverybody hates you — everybody's waiting for you to die, so that they can get you out of the way. The doctors come, and they're all humbugs! They shake their heads and use long words — they know they can't do you any good, but they want their big fees! And all they do is to frighten you worse, and make you sicker than ever!"

There was nothing that Montague could do save to sit and listen to this outburst of wretched-

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ness. His attempts to soothe the old man only had the effect of exciting him more.

"Why does it all have to fall on me?" he moaned. " I want to be like other people — I want to live! And instead, I'm like a man with a pack of hungry wolves prowling round him — that's what it's like! It's like Nature — hungry and cruel and savage! You think you know what life is; it seems so beautiful and gentle and pleasant — that's when you're on top ! But now I'm down, and I know what it is — it's a thing like a nightmare, that reaches out for you to clutch you and crush you! And you can't get away from it — you're helpless as a rat in a corner — you're damned—you're damned!" The miserable man's voice broke in a cry of despair, and he sank down in a heap in front of Montague, shaking and sobbing. The other was trembling slightly, and stricken with awe.

There was a long silence, and then the stranger lifted his tear-stained face, and Montague helped to support him. "Have a little more of the whiskey," said he.

"No," the other answered feebly, "I'd better not." _ :

" — My doctors won't let me have whiskey," he added, after a while. " That's my liver. I've so many don'ts, you know, that it takes a notebook to keep track of them. And all of them together do me no good ! Think of it — I have to live on graham crackers and milk — actually, not a thing has passed my lips for two years but graham crackers and milk."

And then suddenly, with a start, it came to

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Montague where he had seen this wrinkled old face before. It was Laura Hegan's uncle, whom the Major had pointed out to him in the dining room of the Millionaires' Club! Old Henry S. Grimes, who was really only sixty, but looked eighty; and who owned slum tenements, and evicted more people in a month than could be crowded into the club-house!

Montague gave no sign, but sat holding the man in his arms. A little trickle of blood came from under the handkerchief and ran down his cheek; Montague felt him tremble as he touched this with his finger.

"Is it much of a cut.!*" he asked.

"Not much," said Montague; "two or three stitches, perhaps."

"Send for my family physician," the other added. "If I should faint, or anything, you'll find his name in my card-case. What's that.''"

There was the sound of voices down the road. "Hello!" Montague shouted; and a moment later two men in automobile costume came run--ning toward him. They stopped, staring in dismay at the sight which confronted them.

At Montague's suggestion they made haste to find a log, by means of which they lifted the auto sufficiently to drag out the body of the chauffeur. Montague saw that it was quite cold.

He went back to old Grimes. "Where do you wish to go.''" he asked.

The other hesitated. "I was bound for the Harrisons' —" he said.

"The Leslie Harrisons.''" asked Montague. (They were people he had met at the Devons'.)

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The other noticed his look of recognition. "Do you know them?" he asked.

"I do," said Montague.

"It isn't far," said the old man. "Perhaps I had best go there." — And then he hesitated for a moment; and catching Montague by the arm, and pulling him toward him, whispered, "Tell me — you — you won't tell —"

Montague, comprehending what he meant, answered, " It will be between us." At the same time he felt a new thrill of revulsion for this most miserable old creature.

They lifted him into the car; and because they delayed long enough to lay a blanket over the body of the chauffeur, he asked peevishly why they did not start. During the ten or fifteen minutes' trip he sat clinging to Montague, shuddering with fright every time they rounded a turn in the road.

They reached the Harrisons' place; and the footman who opened the door was startled out of his studied impassivity by the sight of a big bundle of bearskin in Montague's arms. "Send for Mrs. Harrison," said Montague, and laid the bundle upon a divan in the hall. " Get a doctor as quickly as you can," he added to a second attendant.

Mrs. Harrison came. "It's Mr. Grimes," said Montague; and then he heard a frightened exclamation, and turned and saw Laura Hegan, in a walking costume, fresh from the cold outside.

"What is it.?" she cried. And he told her, as quickly as he could, and she ran to help the

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old man. Montague stood by, and later carried him upstairs, and waited below until the doctor came.

It was only when he set out for home again that he found time to think about Laura Hegan, and how beautiful she had looked in her furs. He wondered if it would always be his fate to meet her under circumstances which left her no time to be aware of his own existence.

At home he told about his adventure, and found himself quite a hero for the rest of the day. He was obliged to give interviews to several newspaper reporters, and to refuse to let one of them take his picture. Everyone at the Devons' seemed to know old Harry Grimes, and Montague thought to himself that if the comments of this particular group of people were a fair sample, the poor wretch was right in saying that he had not a friend in the world.

When he came downstairs the next morning, he found elaborate accounts of the accident in the papers, and learned that Grimes had nothing worse than a scalp wound and a case of shock. Even so, he felt it was incumbent upon him to pay a visit of inquiry, and rode over shortly before lunch.

Laura Hegan came down to see him, wearing a morning gown of white. She confirmed the good news of the papers, and said that her uncle was resting quietly. (She did not say that his physician had come post-haste, with two nurses, and taken up his residence in the house, and that the poor old millionaire was denied even his

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graham crackers and milk.) Instead she said that he had mentioned Montague's kindness particularly, and asked her to thank him. Montague was cynical enough to doubt this.

It was the first time that he had ever had any occasion to talk with Miss Hegan. He noticed her gentle and caressing voice, with the least touch of the South in it; and he was glad to find that it was possible for her to talk without breaking the spell of her serene and noble beauty. Montague stayed as long as he had any right to stay.

And all the way as he rode home he was thinking about Laura Hegan. Here for the first time was a woman whom he felt he should like to know; a woman with reserve and dignity, and some ideas in her life. And it was impossible for him to know her — because she was rich!

There was no dodging this fact — Montague did not even try. He had met women with fortunes already, and he knew how they felt about themselves, and how the rest of the world felt about them. They might wish in their hearts to be something else besides the keepers of a treasure-chest, but their wishes were futile; the money went with them, and they had to defend it against all comers. Montague recalled one heiress after another — debutantes, some of them, exquisite and delicate as butterflies — but under the surface as hard as chain-armour. All their lives they had been trained to think of themselves as representing money, and of everyone who came near them as adventurers seeking money. In every word they uttered, in every

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glance and motion, one might read this meaning. And then he thought of Laura Hegan, with the fortune she would inherit; and he pictured what her life must be — the toadies and parasites and flatterers who would lay siege to her —the scheming mammas and the affectionate sisters and cousins who would plot to gain her confidence ! For a man who was poor, and who meant to keep his self-respect, was there any possible conclusion except that she was entirely unknowable to him ?

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CHAPTER XVI

MONTAGUE came back to the city, and dug into his books again; while Alice gave her spare hours to watching the progress of the new gown in which she was to uphold the honour of the family at Mrs. Devon's opening ball. The great event was due in the next week, and Society was as much excited about it as a family of children before Christmas. All whom Montague met were invited, and all were going, unless they happened to be in mourning. Their gossip was all of the disappointed ones, and their bitterness and heartburning.

Mrs. Devon's mansion was thrown open early on the eventful evening, but few would come until midnight. It was the fashion to attend the Opera first, and previous to that half a dozen people would give big dinners. He was a fortunate person who did not hear from his liver after this occasion; for at one o'clock came Mrs. Devon's massive supper, and then again at four o'clock another supper. To prepare these repasts a dozen extra chefs had been imported into the Devon establishment for a week — for it was part of the great lady's pride to permit no outside caterer to prepare anything for her guests.

Montague had never been able to get over his wonder at the social phenomenon known as Mrs. Devon. He came, and took his chances in the jostling throngs; and except that he got into

271

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casual conversation with one of the numerous detectives, whom he took for a guest, he came oif fairly well. But all the time that he was being passed about and introduced and danced with, he was looking about him and wondering. The grand staircase and the hall and parlours had been turned into tropical gardens, with palms and trailing vines, and azaleas and roses, and ^reat vases of scarlet poinsettia with hundreds of lights glowing through them. (It was said that this ball had exhausted the flower supply of the country as far south as Atlanta.) Ana tnen in the reception room one came upon the little old lady, standing beneath a bower of orchids. She was clad in a robe of royal purple trimmed with silver, and girdled about with an armour-plate of gems. If one might credit the papers, the diamonds that were worn at one of these balls were valued at twenty million dollars.

The stranger was quite overwhelmed by all the splendour. There was a cotillion danced by two hundred gorgeously clad women and their partners—a scene so gay that one could only think of it as happening in a fairy legend, or some old romance of knighthood. Four sets of favours were given during this function, and jewels and objects of art were showered forth as if from a magician's wand. Mrs. Devon herself soon disappeared, but the riot of music and merry-makmg went on until near morning, and during all this time the halls and rooms of the great mansion were so crowded that one could scarcely move about.

Then one went home, and realised that all

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this splendour, and the human effort which it represented, had been for nothing but a memory ! Nor would he get the full meaning of it if he failed to realise that it was simply one of thousands — a pattern which everyone there would strive to follow in some function of his own. It was a signal bell, which told the world that the "season" was open. It loosed the floodgates of extravagance, and the torrent of dissipation poured forth. From then on there would be a continuous round of gaieties; one might have three banquets every single night — for a dinner and two suppers was now the custom at entertainments ! And filling the rest of one's day were receptions and teas and musicales — a person might take his choice among a score of opportunities, and never leave the circle he met at Mrs. Devon's. Nor was this counting the tens of thousands of aspirants and imitators all over the city; nor in a host of other cities, each with thousands of women who had nothing to do save to ape the ways of the Metropolis. The mind could not realise the volume of this deluge of destruction — it was a thing which stunned the senses, and thundered in one's ears like Niagara.

The meaning of it all did not stop with the people who poured it forth; its effects were to be traced through the whole country. There were hordes of tradesmen and manufacturers who supplied what Society bought, and whose study it was to induce people to buy as much as possible. And so they devised what were called "fashions" — little eccentricities of cut and material, which made everything go out of date quickly. There

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had once been two seasons, but now there were four; and through window displays and millions of advertisements the public was lured into the trap. The "yellow" journals would give whole pages to describing "What the 400 are wearing"; there were magazines with many millions of readers, which existed for nothing save to propagate these ideas. And everywhere, in all classes of Society, men and women were starving their minds and hearts, and straining their energies to follow this phantom of fashion; the masses were kept poor because of it, and the youth and hope of the world was betrayed by it. In country villages poor farmers' wives were trimming their bonnets over to be "stylish"; and servant-girls in the cities were wearing imitation sealskins, and shop-clerks and sempstresses selling themselves into brothels for the sake of ribbons and gilt jewellery.

It was the instinct of decoration, perverted by the money-lust. In the Metropolis the sole test of excellence was money, and the possession of money was the proof of power; and every natural desire of men and women had been tainted by this influence. The love of beauty, the impulse to hospitality, the joys of music and dancing and love — all these things had become simply means to the demonstration of money-power! The men were busy making more money — but their idle women had nothing in life save this mad race in display. So it had come about that the woman who could consume wealth most conspicuously — who was the most effective instrument for the destroying of the labour and the

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lives of other people — this was the woman who was most applauded and most noticed.

The most appalling fact about Society was this utter blind materialism. Such expectations as Montague had brought with him had been derived from the literature of Europe; in a grand monde such as this, he expected to meet diplomats and statesmen, scientists and explorers, philoso-

Ehers and poets and painters. But one never card anything about such people in Society. It was a mark of eccentricity to be interested in intellectual affairs, and one might go about for weeks and not meet a person with an idea. When these people read, it was a sugar-candy novel, and when they went to the play, it was a musical comedy. The one single intellectual product which it could point to as its own, was a rancid scandal-sheet, used mainly as a means of blackmail. Now and then some aspiring young matron of the "elite" would try to set up a salon after the fashion of the continent, and would gather a few feeble wits about her for a time. But for the most part the intellectual workers of the city held themselves severely aloof; and Society was left a little clique of people whose fortunes had become historic in a decade or two, and who got together in each other's palaces and gorged themselves, and gambled and gossiped about each other, and wove about their personalities a veil of awful and exclusive majesty.

Montague found himself thinking that perhaps it was not they who were to blame. It was not they who had set up wealth as the end and goal of things — it was the whole community, of which

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they were a part. It was not their fault that they had been left with power and nothing to use it for; it was not their fault that their sons and daughters found themselves stranded in the world, deprived of all necessity, and of the possibility of doing anything useful.

The most pitiful aspect of the whole thing to Montague was this second generation" who were coming upon the scene, with their lives all poisoned in advance. No wrong which they could do to the world would ever equal the wrong which the world had done them, in permitting them to have money which they had not earned. They were cut off for ever from reality, and from the possibility of understanding life; they had big, healthy bodies, and they craved experience — and they had absolutely nothing to do. That was the real meaning of all this orgy of dissipation— this "social whirl" as it was called ; it was the frantic chase of some new thrill, some excitement that would stir the senses of people who had nothing in the world to interest them. That was why they were building palaces, and flinging largesses of banquets and balls, and tearing about the country in automobiles, and travelling over the earth in steam yachts and private trains.

And first and last, the lesson of their efforts was, that the chase was futile; the jaded nerves would not thrill. The most conspicuous fact about Society was its unutterable and agonising boredom; of its great solemn functions the shopgirl would read with greedy envy, but the women who attended them would be half asleep behind

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their jewelled fans. It was typified to Montague by Mrs. Billy Alden's yachting party on the Nile; yawning in the face of the Sphinx, and playing bridge beneath the shadow of the pyramids — and counting the crocodiles and proposing to jump in by way of "changing the pain" !

People attended these ceaseless rounds of entertainments, simply because they dreaded to be left alone. They wandered from place to place, following like a herd of sheep whatever leader would inaugurate a new diversion. One could have filled a volume with the list of their "fads." There were new ones every week — if Society did not invent them, the yellow journals invented them. There was a woman who had her teeth filled with diamonds; and another who was driving a pair of zebras. One heard of monkey dinners and pajama dinners at Newport, of horseback dinners and vegetable dances in New York. One heard of fashion-albums and autograph-fans and talking crows and rare orchids and reindeer meat; of bracelets for men and ankle rings for women; of "vanity-boxes" at ten and twenty thousand dollars each; of weird and repulsive pets, chameleons and lizards and king-snakes — there was one young woman who wore a cat-snake as a necklace. One would take to slumming and another to sniffing brandy through the nose; one had a table-cover made of woven roses, and another was wearing perfumed flannel at sixteen dollars a yard; one had inaugurated ice-skating in August, and another had started a class for the study of Plato. Some were giving tennis tourna-

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ments in bathing-suits, and playing leap-frog after dinner; others had got dispensations from the Pope, so that they might have private chapels and confessors; and yet others were giving *' progressive dinners," moving from one restaurant to another—a cocktail and bluepoints at Sherry's, a soup and Madeira at Delmonico's, some terrapin with amontillado at the Waldorf — and so on.

One of the consequences of the furious pace was that people's health broke down very quickly; and there were all sorts of bizarre ways of restoring it. One person would be eating nothing but spinach, and another would be living on grass. One would chew a mouthful of soup thirty-two times; another would eat every two hours, and another only once a week. Some went out in the early morning and walked barefooted in the grass, and others went hopping about the floor on their hands and knees to take off fat. There were "rest cures" and "water cures," "new thought" and "metaphysical healing" and "Christian Science"; there was an automatic horse, which one might ride indoors, with a register showing the distance travelled. Montague met one man who had an electric machine, which cost thirty thousand dollars, and which took hold of his arms and feet and exercised him while he waited. He met a woman who told him she was riding an electric camel!

Everywhere one went there were new people, spending their money in new and incredible ways. Here was a man who had bought a chapel and turned it into a theatre, and hired professional actors, and persuaded his friends to

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come and see him act Shakespeare. Here was a woman who costumed herself after figures in famous paintings, with arrangements of roses and cherry leaves, and wreaths of ivy and laurel — and with costumes for her pet dogs to match! Here was a man who paid six dollars a day for a carnation four inches across; and a girl who wore a hat trimmed with fresh morning-glories, and a ball costume with swarms of live butterflies tied with silk threads; and another with a hat made of woven silver, with ostrich plumes forty inches long made entirely of silver films. Here was a man who hired a military company to drill all day long to prepare a floor for dancing; and another who put up a building at a cost of thirty thousand dollars to give a debutante dance for his daughter, and then had it torn down the day after. Here was a man who bred rattlesnakes, and turned them loose by thousands, and had driven everybody away from the North Carolina estate of one of the Wallings. Here was a man who was building himself a yacht with a model dairy and bakery on board, and a French laundry and a brass band; here was a million-dollar racing-yacht with auto-boats on it, and a platoon of marksmen, and some Chinese laundry-men, and two physicians for its haK-insane occu-gant. Here was a man who had bought a Lhine castle for three-quarters of a million, and spent as much in restoring it, and filled it with servants dressed in fourteenth-century costumes. Here was a five-million-dollar art collection hidden away where nobody ever saw it!

One saw the meaning of this madness most

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clearly in the young men of Society. Some were killing themselves and other people in automobile races at a hundred and twenty miles an hour. Some went in for auto-boats, mere shells of things, shaped like a knife-blade, that tore through the water at forty miles an hour. Some would hire professional pugilists to knock them out; others would get up dog fights and bear fights, and boxing matches with kangaroos. Montague was taken to the home of one man who had given his life to hunting wild game in every corner of the globe, and would travel round the world for a new species to add to his museum of trophies. He had heard that Baron Rothschild had offered a thousand pounds for a "bongo," a huge grass-eating animal, which no white man had ever seen; and he had taken a year's trip into the interior, with a train of a hundred and thirty natives, and had brought out the heads of forty different species, including a bongo — which the Baron did not get! He met another who had helped to organise a balloon club, and took twenty-four-hour trips in the clouds. (This, by the way, was the latest sport — at Tuxedo they had races between balloons and automobiles; and Montague met one young lady who boasted that she had been up five times.) There was another young millionaire who sat and patiently taught Sunday School, in the presence of a host of reporters; there was another who set up a chain of newspapers all over the country, and made war upon his class. There were others who went in for settlement work and Russian revolutionists — there were even some who called

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themselves Socialists! Montague thought that this was the strangest fad of all; and when he met one of these young men at an afternoon tea, he gazed at him with wonder and perplexity — thinking of the man he had heard ranting on the street-corner.

This was the " second generation." Appalling as it was to think of, there was a third growing up, and getting ready to take the stage. And with wealth accumulating faster than ever, who could guess what they might do ? There were still in Society a few men and women who had earned their money, and had some idea of the toil and suffering that it stood for; but when the third generation had taken possession, these would all be dead or forgotten, and there would no longer be any link to connect them with reality!

In the Ught of this thought, one was moved to watch the children of the rich. Some of these had inherited scores of millions of dollars while they were still in the cradle; now and then one of them would be presented with a million-dollar house for a birthday gift. When such a baby was born, the newspapers would give pages to describing its layette, with baby dresses at a hundred dollars each, and lace handkerchiefs at five dollars, and dressing-sets with tiny gold brushes and powder-boxes; one might see a picture of the precious object in a " Moses basket," covered with rare and wonderful Valenciennes lace.

This child would grow up in an atmosphere of luxury and self-indulgence; it would be buUy-

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ing the servants at the age of six, and talking scandal and smoking cigarettes at twelve. It would be petted and admired and stared at, and paraded about in state, dressed up like a French doll; it would drink in snobbery and hatefulness with the very air it breathed. One might meet in these great houses little tots not yet in their teens whose talk was all of the cost of things, and of the inferiority of their neighbours. There was nothing in the world too good for them — they had little miniature automobiles to ride about the country in, and blooded Arabian ponies, and doll-houses in real Louis Seize, with jewelled rugs and miniature electric lights. At Mrs. Caroline Smythe's, Montague was introduced to a pale and anaemic-looking youth of thirteen, who dined in solemn state alone when the rest of the family was away, and insisted upon having all the footmen in attendance; and his unfortunate aunt brought a storm about her ears by forbidding the butler to take champagne upstairs into the nursery before lunch.

A little remark stayed in Montague's mind as expressing the attitude of Society toward such matters. Major Venable had chanced to remark jestingly that children were coming to understand so much nowadays that it was necessary for the ladies to be careful. To which Mrs. Vivie Pat-ton answered, with a sudden access of seriousness : " I don't know — do you find that children have any morals.'' Mine haven't."

And then the fascinating Mrs. Vivie went on to tell the truth about her own children. They were natural-born savages, and that was all

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there was to it. They did as they pleased, and no one could stop them. The Major repUed that nowadays all the world was doing as it pleased, and no one seemed to be able to stop it; and with that jest the conversation was turned to other matters. But Montague sat in silence, thinking about it — wondering what would happen to the world when it had fallen under the sway of this generation of spoiled children, and had adopted altogether the religion of doing as one pleased.

In the beginning people had simply done as they pleased spontaneously, and without thinking about it; but now, Montague discovered, the custom had spread to such an extent that it was developing a philosophy. There was springing up a new cult, whose devotees were planning to make over the world upon the plan of doing as one pleased. Because its members were wealthy, and able to command the talent of the world, the cult was developing an art, with a highly perfected technique, and a literature which was subtle and exquisite and alluring. Europe had had such a literature for a century, and England for a generation or two. And now America was having it, too !

Montague had an amusing insight into this one day, when Mrs. Vivie invited him to one of her "artistic evenings." Mrs. Vivie was in touch with a special set which went in for intellectual things, and included some amateur Bohemians and men of "genius." "Don't you come if you'll be shocked," she had said to him — "for Strathcona wiU be there."

Montague deemed himself able to stand a

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good deal by this time. He went, and found Mrs. Vivie and her Count (Mr. Vivie had apparently not been invited) and also the young poet of Diabolism, whose work was just then the talk of the town. He was a tall, slender youth with a white face and melancholy black eyes, and black locks falling in cascades about his ears; he sat in an Oriental corner, with a manuscript copied in tiny handwriting upon delicately scented ' art paper," and tied with passionate purple ribbons. A young girl clad in white sat by his side and held a candle, while he read from this manuscript his unprinted (because unprintable) verses.

And between the readings the young poet talked. He talked about himself and his work — apparently that was what he had come to talk about. His words flowed like a swift stream, limpid, sparkling, incessant; leaping from place to place — here, there, quick as the play of light upon the water. Montague laboured to follow the speaker's ideas, until he found his mind in a whirl and gave it up. Afterward, when he thought it over, he laughed at himself; for Strath-cona s ideas were not serious things, having relationship to truth — they were epigrams put together to dazzle the hearer, studies in paradox, with as much relation to life as fireworks. He took the sum-total of the moral experience of the human race, and turned it upside down and jumbled it about, and used it as bits of glass in a kaleidoscope. And the hearers would gasp, and whisper, ' Diabolical!"

The motto of this "school" of poets was that there was neither good nor evil, but that all

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things were "interesting." After listening to Strathcona for half an hour, one felt like hiding his head, and denying that he had ever thought of having any virtue; m a world where all mings were uncertain, it was presumptuous even to pretend to know what virtue was. One could only be what one was; and did not that mean that one must do as one pleased ?

You could feel a shudder run through the company at his audacity. And the worst of it was that you could not dismiss it with a laugh; for the boy was really a poet — he had fire and passion, the gift of melodious ecstasy. He was only twenty, and in his brief meteor flight he had run the gamut of all experience; he had familiarised himself with all human achievement — past, present, and future. There was nothing anyone could mention that he did not perfectly comprehend: the raptures of the saints, the consecration of the martyrs — yes, he had known them; likewise he had toucned the depths of depravity, he had been lost in the innermost passages of the caverns of hell. And all this had been interesting — in its time; now he was sighing for new worlds of experience — say for an unrequited love, which should drive him to madness.

It was at this point that Montague dropped out of the race, and took to studying from the outside the mechanism of this young poet's conversation. Strathcona flouted the idea of a moral sense; but in reality he was quite dependent upon it — his recipe for making epigrams was to take what other people's moral sense made

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them respect, and identify it with something which their moral sense made them abhor. ■ Thus, for instance, the tale which he told about one of the members of his set, who was a relative of a bishop. The great man had occasion to rebuke him for his profligate ways, declaring in the course of his lecture that he was living off the reputation of his father; to which the boy made the crushing rejoinder: "It may be bad to live off the reputation of one's father, but it's better than living off the reputation of God."—This was very subtle, and it was necessary to ponder it. God was dead; and the worthy bishop did not know it! But let him take a new God, who had no reputation, and go out into the world and make a living out of him !

Then Strathcona discussed literature. He paid his tribute to the "Fleurs de Mai" and the 'Songs before Sunrise"; but most, he said, he owed to "the divine Oscar." This English poet of many poses and some vices the law had seized and flung into jail; and since the law is a thing so brutal and wicked that whoever is touched by it is made thereby a martyr and a hero, there had grown up quite a cult about the memory of " Oscar." All up-to-date poets imitated his style and his attitude to life; and so the most revolting and bestial of vices had the cloak of romance flung about them — were given long Greek and Latin names, and discussed with parade of learning as revivals of Hellenic ideals. The young men in Strathcona's set referred to each other as their "lovers"; and if one showed any perplexity over this, he was regarded, not

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with contempt — for it was not aesthetic to feel contempt — but with a slight Ufting of the eyebrows, intended to annihilate.

One must not forget, of course, that these young people were poets, and to that extent were protected from their own doctrines. They were interested, not in life, but in making pretty verses about life; there were some among them who lived as cheerful ascetics in garret rooms, and gave melodious expression to devilish emotions. But, on the other hand, for every poet there were thousands who were not poets, but people to whom life was real. And these lived out the creed, and wrecked their lives; and with the aid of the poet's magic, the glamour of melody and the fire divine, they wrecked the lives with which they came into contact. The new generation of boys and girls were deriving their spiritual sustenance from the poetry of Baudelaire and Swinburne and Wilde; and rushing with the hot impulsiveness of youth into the dreadful traps which the traders in vice prepared for them. One's heart bled to see them, pink-cheeked and bright-eyed, pursuing the hem of the Muse's robe in brothels and dens of infamy!

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CHAPTER XVII

THE social mill ground on for another month. Montague withdrew himself as much as his brother would let him; but Alice was on the go all night and half the day. Oliver had sold his racing automobile to a friend — he was a man of family now, he said, and his wild days were over. He had got, instead, a limousine car for Alice; though she declared she had no need of it — if ever she was going to any place, Charlie Carter always begged her to use his. Charlie's siege was as persistent as ever, as Montague noticed with annoyance.

The great law case was going forward. After weeks of study and investigation, Montague felt that he had the matter well in hand; and he had taken Mr. Hasbrook's memoranda as a basis for a new work of his own, much more substantial. Bit by bit, as he dug into the subject, he had discovered a state of affairs in the Fidelity Company, and, indeed, in the whole insurance business and its allied realms of banking and finance, which shocked him profoundly. It was impossible for him to imagine how such conditions could exist and remain unknown to the public — more especially as everyone in Wall Street with whom he talked seemed to know about them and to take them for granted.

His client's papers had provided him with references to the books; Montague had taken

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this dry material and made of it a protest which had the breath of life in it. It was a thing at which he toiled with deadly earnestness; it was not merely a struggle of one man to get a few thousand dollars, it was an appeal in behalf of millions of helpless people whose trust had been betrayed. It was the first step in a long campaign, which the young lawyer meant should force a great evil into the light of day.

He went over his bill of complaint with Mr. Hasbrook, and he was glad to see that the work he had done made its impression upon him. In fact, his client was a little afraid that some of his arguments might be too radical in tone — from the strictly legal point of view, he made haste to explain. But Montague reassured him upon this point.

And then came the day when the great ship was ready for launching. The news must have spread quickly, for a few hours after the papers in the suit had been filed, Montague received a call from a newspaper reporter, who told him of the excitement in financial circles, where the thing had fallen like a bomb. Montague explained the purpose of the suit, and gave the reporter a number of facts which he felt certain would attract attention to the matter. When he kicked up the paper the next morning, however, le was surprised to find that only a few lines had seen given to the case, and that his interview had been replaced by one with an unnamed official of the Fidelity, to the effect that the attack upon the company was obviously for blackmailing purposes.

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That was the only ripple which Montague's work produced upon the surface of the pool; but there was a great commotion among the fish at the bottom, about which he was soon to learn.

That evening, while he was hard at work in his study, he received a telephone call from his brother. "I'm coming round to see you," said Oliver. "Wait for me."

"All right," said the other, and added, "I thought you were dining at the Wallings'."

"Im there now," was the answer. "I'm leaving."

"What is the matter.P" Montague asked.

"There's hell to pay," was the reply — and then silence.

When Oliver appeared, a few minutes later, he did not even stop to set down his hat, but exclaimed, "Allan, what in heaven's name have you been doing.?"

"What do you mean.''" asked the other.

"Why, that suit!"

"What about it.?"

"Good God, man!" cried Oliver. "Do you mean that you really don't know what you've done.?"

Montague was staring at him. "I'm afraid I don't," said he.

" Why, you're turning the world upside down !" exclaimed the other. " Everybody you know is crazy about it."

"Everybody I know!" echoed Montague. "What have they to do with it.?"

"Why, you've stabbed them in the back!" half shouted Oliver. "I could hardly believe

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my ears when they told me. Robbie Walling is simply wild — I never had such a time in my life/'

"I don't understand yet," said Montague, more and more amazed. "What has he to do with it?"

"Why, man," cried Oliver, "his brother's a director in the Fidelity! And his own interests — and all the other companies ! You've struck at the whole insurance business !"

Montague caught his breath. "Oh, I see!" he said.

" How could you think of such a thing ? " cried the other, wildly. "You promised to consult me about things —"

"I told you when I took this case," put in Montague, quickly.

"I know," said his brother. "But you didn't explain — and what did I know about it ? I thought I could leave it to your common sense not to mix up in a thing like this."

"I'm very sorry," said Montague, gravely. "I had no idea of any such result."

"That's what I told Robbie," said Oliver. " Good God, what a time I had !"

He took his hat and coat and laid them on the bed, and sat down and began to tell about it. "I made him realise the disadvantage you were under," he said, "being a stranger and not knowing the ground. I believe he had an idea that you had tried to get his confidence on purpose to attack him. It was Mrs. Robbie, I guess — you know her fortune is all in that quarter."

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Oliver wiped the perspiration from his forehead. "My!" he said. "And fancy what old Wyman must be saying about this! And what a time poor Betty must be having! And then Freddie V andam — the air will be blue for half a mile around his place ! I must send him a wire and explain that it was a mistake, and that we're getting out of it."

And he got up, to suit the action to the word. But halfway to the desk he heard his brother say, "Wait."

He turned, and saw Montague, quite pale. "I suppose by ' getting out of it,' " said the latter, "you mean dropping the case."

" Of course," was the answer.

"Well, then," he continued, very gravely,— "I can see that it's going to be hard, and I'm sorry. But you might as well understand me at the very beginning — I Will never drop this case."

Oliver's ]aw fell limp. "Allan !" he gasped.

There was a silence; and then the storm broke. Oliver knew his brother well enough to realise just how thoroughly he meant what he said; and so he got the full force of the shock all at once. He raved and swore and wrung his hands, and declaimed at his brother, saying that he had betrayed him, that he was ruining him — dumping himself and the whole family into the ditch. They would be jeered at and insulted — they would be blacklisted and thrown out of Society. Alice's career would be cut short — every door would be closed to her. His own career would die before it was bom; he would never get into the clubs — he would be a pariah — he would be

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bankrupted and penniless. Again and again Oliver went over the situation, naming person after person who would be outraged, and describing what that person would do; there were the Wallings and the Venables and the Havens, the Vandams and the Todds and the Wymans — they were all one regiment, and Montague had flung a bomb into the centre of them !

It was very terrible to him to see his brother's rage and despair; but he had seen his way clear through this matter, and he knew that there was no turning back for him. " It is painful to learn that all one's acquaintances are thieves," he said. "But that does not change my opinion of steal-

'But my God!" cried Oliver, " did you come to New York to preach sermons.?"

To which the other answered, " I came to practise law. And the lawyer who will not fight injustice is a traitor to his profession."

Oliver threw up his hands in despair. What could one say to a sentiment such as that?

— But then again he came to the charge, pointing out to his brother the position in which he had placed himself with the Wallings. He had accepted their hospitality; they had taken him and Alice in, and done everything in the world for them — things for which no money could ever repay them. And now he had struck them !

But the only effect of that was to make Montague regret that he had ever had anything to do with the Wallings. If they expected to use their friendship to tie his hands in such a matter, they were people he would have left alone.

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"But do you realise that it's not merely yourself you're ruining?" cried Oliver. "Do you know what you're doing to Alice?"

"That is harder yet for me," the other replied. "But I am sure that Alice would not ask me to stop."

Montague was firmly set in his own mind; but it seemed to be quite impossible for his brother to realise that this was the case. He would give up; but then, going back into his own mind, and facing the thought of this person and that, and the impossibility of the situation which would arise, he would return to the attack with new anguish in his voice. He implored and scolded, and even wept; and then he would get himself together again, and come and sit in front of his brother and try to reason with him.

And so it was that in the small hours of the morning, Montague, pale and nervous, but quite unshaken, was sitting and listening while his brother unfolded before him a picture of the Metropolis as he had come to see it. It was a city ruled by mighty forces — money-forces; great families and fortunes, which had held their sway for generations, and regarded the place, with all its swarming millions, as their birthright. They possessed it utterly — they held it in the hollow of their hands. Railroads and telegraphs and telephones — banks and insurance and trust companies — all these they owned; and the political machines and the legislatures, the courts and the newspapers, the churches and the colleges. And their rule was for plunder; all the streams of profit ran into their coffers. The

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stranger who came to their city succeeded as he helped them in their purposes, and failed if they could not use him. A great editor or bishop was a man who taught their doctrines; a great statesman was a man who made the laws for them; a great lawyer was one who helped them to outwit the public. Any man who dared to oppose them, they would cast out and trample on, they would slander and ridicule and ruin.

And Oliver came down to particulars — he named these powerful men, one after one, and showed what they could do. If his brother would only be a man of the world, and see the thing! Look at all the successful lawyers! Oliver named them, one after one — shrewd devisers of corporation trickery, with incomes of hundreds of thousands a year. He could not name the men who had refused to play the game — for no one had ever heard of them. But it was so evident what would happen in this case! His friends would cast him off; his own client would get his price — whatever it was — and then leave him in the lurch, and laugh at him! "If you can't make up your mind to play the game," cried Oliver, frantically, "at least you can give it up ! There are plenty of other ways of getting a living — if you'll let me, I'll take care of you myself, rather than have you disgrace me. Tell me — will you do that ? Will you quit altogether .'*"

And Montague suddenly leaped to his feet, and brought his fist down upon the desk with a bang. ^'No!" he cried; "byC^od, no!"

" Let me make you understand me once for all,"

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he rushed on. "You've shown me New York as you see it. I don't believe it's the truth — I don't believe it for one single moment! But let me tell you this, I shall stay here and find out — and if it is true, it won't stop me! I shall stay here and defy those people! I shall stay and fight them till the day I die ! They may ruin me, — I'll go and live in a garret if I have to, — but as sure as there's a God that made me, I'll never stop till I've opened the eyes of the people to what they're doing!"

Montague towered over his brother, white-hot and terrible. Oliver shrank from him — he never had seen such a burst of wrath from him before. "Do you understand me now.?" Montague cried; and he answered, in a despairing voice, "Yes, yes."

"I see it's all up," he added weakly. "You and I can't pull together."

"No," exclaimed the other, passionately, "we can't. And we might as well give up trying. You have chosten to be a time-server and a lickspittle, and I don't choose it! Do you think I've learned nothing in the time I've been here ? Why, man, you used to be daring and clever — and now you never draw a breath without wondering if these rich snobs will like the way you do it! And you want Alice to sell herself to them — you want me to sell my career to them !"

There was a long pause. Oliver had turned very pale. And then suddenly his brother caught himself together, and said: "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to quarrel, but you've goaded me too much. I'm grateful for what you have tried to do for me,

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and I'll pay you back as soon as I can. But I can't go on with this game. I'll quit, and you can disown me to your friends — tell them that I've run amuck, and to forget they ever knew me. They'll hardly blame you for it — they know you too well for that. And as for Alice, I'll talk it out with her to-morrow, and let her decide for herself — if she wants to be a Society queen, she can put herself in your hands, and I'll get out of her way. On the other hand, if she approves of what I'm doing, why, we'll both quit, and you won't have to bother with either of us."

That was the basis upon which they parted for the night; but like most resolutions taken at white heat, it was not followed literally. It was very hard for Montague to have to confront Alice with such a choice; and as for Oliver, when he went home and thought it over, he began to discover gleams of hope. He might make it clear to everyone that he was not responsible for his brother's business vagaries, and take his chances upon that basis. After all, there were wheels within wheels in Society; and if the Robbie Wallings chose to break with him — why, they had plenty of enemies. There might even be interests which would be benefited by Allan's course, and would take him up.

Montague had resolved to write and break every engagement which he had made, and to sever his connection with Society at one stroke. But the next day his brother came again, with compromises and new protestations. There was no use going to the other extreme; he, Oliver,

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would have it out with the Wallings, and they might all go on their way as if nothing had happened.

So Montague made his debut in the role of knight-errant. He went with many qualms and misgivings, uncertain how each new person would take it. The next evening he was promised for, a theatre-party with Siegfried Harvey; and they had supper in a private room at Delmonico's, and there came Mrs. Winnie, resplendent as an apple tree in early April — and murmuring with bated breath, "Oh, you dreadful man, what have you been doing .p"

"Have I been poaching on your preserves.''" he asked promptly.

"No, not mine," she said, "but —" and then she hesitated.

"On Mr. Duval's.?" he asked.

"No," she said, "not his — but everybody else's! He was telling me about it to-day— there's a most dreadful uproar. He wanted me to try to find out what you were up to, and who was behind it."

Montague listened, wonderingly. Did Mrs. Winnie mean to imply that her husband had asked her to try to worm his business secrets out of him ? That was what she seemed to imply. "I told him I never talked business with my friends," she said. "He can ask you himself, if he chooses. But what does it all mean, anyhow.?"

Montague smiled at the naive inconsistency.

"It means nothing," said he, "except that I am trying to get justice for a client."

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"But can you afford to make so many powerful enemies?" she asked.

"I've taken my chances on that," he replied.

Mrs. Winnie answered nothing, but looked at him with wondering admiration in her eyes. "You are different from the men about you," she remarked, after a while — and her tone gave Montague to understand that there was one person who meant to stand by him.

But Mrs. Winnie Duval was not all Society. Montague was amused to notice with what suddenness the stream of invitations slacked up; it was necessary for Alice to give her calling list many revisions. Freddie Vandam had promised to invite them to his place on Long Island, and of course that invitation would never come; likewise they would never again see the palace of the Lester Todds, upon the Jersey mountain-top.

Oliver put in the next few days in calling upon people to explain his embarrassing situation. He washed his hands of his brother's affairs, he said; and his friends might do the same, if they saw fit. With the Robbie Wallings he had a stormy half hour, about which he thought it best to say little to the rest of the family. Robbie did not break with him utterly, because of their Wall Street alliance; but Mjs. Robbie's feeling was so bitter, he said, that it would be best if Alice saw nothing of her for a while. He had a long talk with Alice, and explained the situation. The girl was utterly dumfounded, for she was deeply grateful to "Mrs. Robbie, and fond of her as well;

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and she could not believe that a friend could be so cruelly unjust to her.

The upshot of the whole situation was a very painful episode. A few days later Alice met Mrs. Robbie at a reception; and she took the lady aside, and tried to tell her how distressed and helpless she was. And the result was that Mrs. Robbie flew into a passion and railed at her, declaring in the presence of several people that she had sponged upon her and abused her hospitality ! And so poor Alice came home, weeping and half hysterical.

All of which, of course, was like oil upon a fire; the heavens were lighted up with the conflagration. The next development was a paragraph in Society's scandal-sheet — telling with inflnite gusto how a certain ultra-fashionable matron had taken up a family of stranded waifs from a far state, and introduced them into the best circles, and even gone so far as to give a magnificent dance in their honour; and how the discovery had been made that the head of the family had been secretly preparing an attack upon their business interests; and of the tearing of hair and gnashing of teeth which had followed — and the violent quarrel in a public place. The paragraph concluded with the prediction that the strangers would find themselves the centre of a merry social war.

Oliver was the first to show them this paper. But lest by any chance they should miss it, half a dozen unknown friends were good enough to mail them copies, carefully marked. — And then came Reggie Mann, who as free-lance and gossip-

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gatherer sat on the fence and watched the fun; Reggie wore a thin veil of sympathy over his naked glee, and brought them the latest reports from all portions of the battle-ground. Thus they were able to know exactly what everybody was saying about them — who was amused and who was outraged, and who proposed to drop them and who to take them up.

Montague listened for a while, but then he got tired of it, and went for a walk to escape it — but only to run into another trap. It was dark, and he was strolling down the Avenue, when out of a brilliantly lighted jewellery shop came Mrs. Billy Alden to her carriage. And she hailed him with an exclamation.

"You man," she cried, "what have you been doing.?"

He tried to laugh it off and escape, but she took him by the arm, commanding, "Get in here and tell me about it."

So he found himself moving with the slow stream of vehicles on the Avenue, and with Mrs. Billy gazing at him quizzically and asking him if he did not feel like a hippopotamus in a frog-pond.

He replied to her raillery by asking her under which flag she stood. But there was little need to ask that, for anyone who was fighting a Walling became ipso facto a friend of Mrs. Billy's. She told Montague that if he felt his social position was imperilled, all he had to do was to come to her. She would gird on her armour and take the field.

"But tell me how you came to do it," she said.

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He answered that there was very little to tell. He had taken up a ease which was obviously just, but having no idea what a storm it would raise.

Then he noticed that his companion was looking at him sharply. "Do you really mean that's all there is to it?" she asked.

" Of course I do," said he, perplexed.

"Do you know," was her unexpected response, "I hardly know what to make of you. I'm afraid to trust you, on account of your brother."

Montague was embarrassed. "I don't know what you mean," he said.

"Everybody thinks there's some trickery in that suit," she answered.

"Oh," said Montague, "I see. Well, they will find out. If it will help you any to know it, I've been having no end of scenes with my brother."

"I'll believe you," said Mrs. Billy, genially. " But it seems strange that a man could have been so blind to a situation ! I feel quite ashamed because I didn't help you myself !"

The carriage had stopped at Mrs. Billy's home, and she asked him to dinner. "There'll be nobody but my brother," she said, — "we're resting this evening. And I can make up to you for my negligence!"

Montague had no engagement, and so he went in, and saw Mrs. Billy's mansion, which was decorated in imitation of a Doge's palace, and met Mr. "Davy" Alden, a mild-mannered little gentleman who obeyed orders promptly. They had a comfortable dinner of half-a-dozen courses, and then retired to the drawing-room, where Mrs.

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Billy sank into a huge easy chair, with a decanter of whiskey and some cracked ice in readiness beside it. Then from a tray she selected a thick black cigar, and placidly bit off the end and lighted it, and then settled back at her ease, and proceeded to tell Montague about New York, and about the great families who ruled it, and where and how they had got their money, and who were their allies and who their enemies, and what particular skeletons were hidden in each of their closets.

It was worth coming a long way to listen to Mrs. Billy tete-a-tete; her thoughts were vigorous, and her imagery was picturesque. She spoke of old Dan Waterman, and described him as a wild boar rooting chestnuts. He was all right, she said, if you didn't come under his tree. And Montague asked, "Which is his tree?" and she answered, "Any one he happens to be under at the time."

And then she came to the Masons. Mrs. Billy had been in on the inside of that family, and there was nothing she didn't know about it; and she brought the members up, one by one, and dissected them, and exhibited them for Montague's benefit. They were typical bourgeois people, she said. They were burghers. They had never shown the least capacity for refinement — they ate and drank, and jostled other people out of the way. The old ones had been boors, and the new ones were cads.

And Mrs. Billy sat and puffed at her cigar. "Do you know the history of the family.?" she asked. "The founder was a rough old ferryman. He fought his rivals so well that in the

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S04 THE METROPOLIS

end he owned all the boats; and then someone discovered the idea of buying legislatures and building railroads, and he went into that. It was a time when they simply grabbed things — if you ever look into it, you'll find they're making fortunes to-day out of privileges that the old man simply sat down on and held. There's a railroad bridge, for instance, to which they haven't any moral right; my brother knows about it — they've given themselves a contract with their railroad by which they're paid for every passenger, and their profit every year is greater than the cost of the bridge.

"The son was the head of the family when I came in; and I found that he had it all arranged to leave thirty million dollars to one of his sons, and only ten million to my husband. I set to work to change that, I can tell you. I used to go around to see him, and scratch his back and tickle him and make him feel good. Of course the family went wild — my, how they hated me ! They set old Ellis to work to keep me off — have you met Judge Ellis?"

"I have," said Montague.

"Well, there's a pussy-footed old hypocrite for you," said Mrs. Billy. "In those days he was Mason's business lackey — used to pass the money to the legislators and keep the wheels of the machine greased. One of the first things I said to the old man was that I didn't ask him to entertain my butler, and he mustn't ask me to entertain his valet — and so I forbade Ellis to enter my house. And when I found that he was trying to get between the old man and me, I flew

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into a rage and boxed his ears and chased him out of the room !"

Mrs. Billy paused, and laughed heartily over the recollection. "Of course that tickled the old man to death," she continued. "The Masons never could make out how I managed to get round him as I did; but it was simply because I was honest with him. They'd come snivelling round, pretending they were anxious about his health; while I wanted his money, and I told him so."

The valiant lady turned to the decanter. "Have some Scotch.-'" she asked, and poured some for herself, and then went on with her story. "When I first came to New York," she said, "the rich people's houses were all alike — all dreary brownstone fronts, sandwiched in on one or two city lots. I vowed that I would have a house with some room all around it — and that was the beginning of those palaces that all New York walks by and stares at. You can hardly believe it now — those houses were a scandal! But the sensation tickled the old man. I remember one day we walked up the Avenue to see how they were coming on; and he pointed with his big stick to the second floor, and asked, 'What's that?' I answered, 'It's a safe I'm building into the house.' (That was a new thing, too, in those days.) — 'I'm going to keep my money in that,' I said. 'Bah !' he growled, 'when you're done with this house, you won't have any money left.' — 'I'm planning to make you fill it for me,' I answered; and do you know, he chuckled all the way home over it!"

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Mrs. Billy sat laughing softly to herself. " We had great old battles in those days," she said. "Among other things, I had to put the Masons into Society. They were sneaking round on the outside when I came — licking people's boots and expecting to be kicked. I said to myself, I'll put an end to that — we'll have a showdown ! So I gave a ball that made the whole country sit up and gasp — it wouldn't be noticed particularly nowadays, but then people had never dreamed of anything so gorgeous. And I made out a list of all the people I wanted to know in New York, and I said to myself: ' If you come, you're a friend, and if you don't come, you're an enemy.* And they all came, let me tell you ! And there was never any question about the Masons being in Society alter that."

Mrs. Billy halted; and Montague remarked, with a smile, that doubtless she was sorry now that she had done it.

"Oh, no," she answered, with a shrug of her shoulders. "I find that all I have to do is to be patient — I hate people, and think I'd like to poison them, but if I only wait long enough, something happens to them much worse than I ever dreamed of. You'll be revenged on the Robbies some day."

"I don't want any revenge," Montague answered. "I've no quarrel with them — I simply wish I hadn't accepted their hospitality. I didn't know they were such little people. It seems hard to believe it."

Mrs. Billy laughed cynically. "What could you expect?" she said. "They know there's

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nothing to them but their money. When that's gone, they're gone — they could never make any more."

The lady gave a chuckle, and added: "Those words make me think of Davy's experience when he wanted to go to Congress! Tell him about it, Davy."

But Mr. Alden did not warm to the subject; he left the tale to his sister.

"He was a Democrat, you know," said she, "and he went to the boss and told him he'd like to go to Congress. The answer was that it would cost him forty thousand dollars, and he kicked at the price. Others didn't have to put up such sums, he said — why should he ? And the old man growled at him, 'The rest have other things to give. One can deliver the letter-carriers, another is paid for by a corporation. But what can you do ? What is there to you but your money.''' So Davy paid the money — didn't you, Davy.?" And Davy grinned sheepishly.

"Even so," she went on, "he came off better than poor Devon. They got fifty thousand out of him, and sold him out, and he never got to Congress after all! That was just before he concluded that America wasn't a fit place for a gentleman to live in."

And so Mrs. Billy got started on the Devons ! And after that came the Havens and the Wymans and the Todds; it was midnight before she got through with them all.

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CHAPTER XVIII

THE newspapers said nothing more about the Hasbrook suit; but in financial circles Montague had attained considerable notoriety because of it. And this was the means of bringing him a number of new cases.

But alas, there were no more fifty-thousand-dollar clients! The first caller was a destitute widow with a deed which would have entitled her to the greater part of a large city in Pennsylvania — only unfortunately the deed was about eighty years old. And then there was a poor old man who had been hurt in a street-car accident and had been tricked into signing away his rights; and an indignant citizen who proposed to bring a hundred suits against the traction trust for transfers refused. All were contingency cases, with the chances of success exceedingly remote. And Montague noticed that the people had come to him as a last resort, having apparently heard of him as a man of altruistic temper.