Part 26 (1/2)

indicating an old h the store at the tireat or how vile--if he should coe, I' oratoricalback his head, exclaione!

There ain't any one!”

I stood there quite dumbfounded by his virility, as the air vibrated with his force and feeling So rief of his own heart that it was alle him with it Goodness and mercy colored all his ideas, except in relation to his one-time followers, those who had formerly been his friends and now left him to himself

”Do you still visit the poor and the afflicted, as you once did?” I asked hi about that,” he replied sternly

”But do you?”

”Yes, sir”

”Still make your annual New Year round?”

”Yes, sir”

”Well, you'll get your reward for that, whatever you believe”

”I've had my reward,” he said slowly

”Had it?”

”Yes, sir, had it Every hand that's been lifted to receive the little I had to offer has been ly theto a lonely wo--basket of grapes or fruit of so, you know; just run in and say 'Happy New Year!' leave what I have and get out--and so said, 'Good , Elihu,' says she

”'Can't stay long, Aunt Mary,' I said 'Just want to leave you these

Happy New Year!'

”Well, sir, you knoas just turning around and starting when she caught hold of ive me that hand!' and do you know, before I knehat she was about she took it up to her lips and kissed it! Yes, she did--kissedhi, ”you knohether I've had my reward or not, don't you?”

_”Vanity, Vanity,” Saith the Preacher_

Sole life will clearly and effectively illustrate a period Hence, to me, the importance of this one

I first met X---- at a time when American financialand splendor, and when the world was in a randiose an, Senior, Mr Bele, Mr Gates, Mr Brady, anddistinctly and drastically, as was proved by the panic of 1907 In opposition to the their methods, now an old story to those who have read ”Frenzied Finance,”

”Lawless Wealth,” and other such exposures of the methods which produced our enorer men as Charles W

Morse (the victiustus Heinze (another if less conspicuous victi millionaire, himself born to money, David A Sullivan, and X----

I refuse to er conspicuous, and anxious perhaps to avoid the uncolare of publicity when all the honors and comforts which made it endurable in the first place are absent

The person whobefore I met him was one Lucien de Shay, a ne'er-do-well pianist and voice culturist, as also a connoisseur in the s in which X---- was just then reat house on Long Island and but newly blosso into the world of art or fashi+on or culture or show--those various things which the American multi-millionaire alants to blosso De Shay was one of those odd natures so common to the metropolis--half artist and half man of fashi+on who attach theth and wealth, often as advisors and counselors in all ress How this particular person was rewarded I never quite knehether in cash or so else He was also a se me ”tips” and material of one sort and another in connection with the various publications I was thenAs it turned out later, X---- was not exactly a h the possibilities were there and his ai 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 audy 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 is a sparkle and a shi+ne which the others can never hope to match