publications I was then managing.  As it turned out later, X——­ was not exactly a multi-millionaire as yet, merely a fledgling, although the possibilities were there and his aims and ambitions were fast nearing a practical triumph the end of which of course was to be, as in the case of nearly all American multi-millionaires of the newer and quicker order, bohemian or exotic and fleshly rather than cultural or aesthetic pleasure, although the latter were never really exactly ignored.

But even so.  He was a typical multi-millionaire in the showy and even gaudy sense of the time.  For if the staid and conservative and socially well-placed rich have the great houses and the ease and the luxury of paraphernalia, the bohemian rich of the X——­ type have the flare, recklessness and imagination which lend to their spendings and flutterings a sparkle and a shine which the others can never hope to match.

Said this friend of mine to me one day:  “Listen, I want you to meet this man X——.  You will like him.  He is fine.  You haven’t any idea what a fascinating person he really is.  He looks like a Russian Grand Duke.  He has the manners and the tastes of a Medici or a Borgia.  He is building a great house down on Long Island that once it is done will have cost him five or six hundred thousand.  It’s worth seeing already.  His studio here in the C——­ studio building is a dream.  It’s thick with the loveliest kinds of things.  I’ve helped buy them myself.  And he isn’t dull.  He wrote a book at twenty, ‘Icarus,’ which is not bad either and which he says is something like himself.  He has read your book ("Sister Carrie”) and he sympathizes with that man Hurstwood.  Says parts of it remind him of his own struggles.  That’s why he wants to meet you.  He once worked on the newspapers too.  God knows how he is making his money, but I know how he is spending it.  He’s decided to live, and he’s doing it splendidly.  It’s wonderful.”

I took notice, although I had never even heard of the man.  There were so very, very many rich men in America.  Later I heard much more concerning him from this same de Shay.  Once he had been so far down in the scale that he had to shine shoes for a living.  Once he had walked the streets of New York in the snow, his shoes cracked and broken, no overcoat, not even a warm suit.  He had come here a penniless emigrant from Russia.  Now he controlled four banks, one trust company, an insurance company, a fire insurance company, a great real estate venture somewhere, and what not.  Naturally all of this interested me greatly.  When are we indifferent to a rise from nothing to something?

At de Shay’s invitation I journeyed up to X——­’s studio one Wednesday afternoon at four, my friend having telephoned me that if I could I must come at once, that there was an especially interesting crowd already assembled in the rooms, that I would meet a long list of celebrities.  Two or three opera singers of repute were already there, among them an Italian singer and sorceress of great beauty, a veritable queen of the genus adventuress, who was setting the town by the ears not only by her loveliness but her voice.  Her beauty was so remarkable that the Sunday papers were giving full pages to her face and torso alone.  There were to be several light opera and stage beauties there also, a basso profundo to sing, writers, artists, poets.