Seven-thirty o'clock: the coffee and toast had been placed by the
valet on the table beside his bed; the warm water was already running
into the bath in the adjoining room; three suits of clothes, carefully
brushed and ironed, were laid on the sofa when he was called. He
seemed to be awake all of a sudden--quite awake. As he was called, a
young man came into the room with a bundle of newspapers. "Let me
see," said Mr. X., "I think I can take half an hour extra this
morning--read away;" and then the young man began reading rapidly from
the papers. He had from long training learned to know what interested
the boss, and read selections from one paper after another which he
had previously gone over--some closing prices of particular stocks
first, then some foreign and general news summary, and then X. asked
him to read particulars of what he wanted to learn more about. After
about fifteen minutes he had had enough, and one of his secretaries,
with a bundle of letters in one hand and a notebook in the other, came
in. As he read the letters, X. dictated, or mostly just indicated, the
replies; they were all business letters. Then his place was taken by
another. His letters were mostly invitations, charitable appeals,
letters from his steward and the head of his stables at Lakewood, from
the skipper of his yacht, from dealers who had pictures that he ought
to buy, from the caretaker of his house in Newport, and letters from
house-agents in London about a house he wanted there for the
Coronation. At eight he took his bath, and while drying and dressing
the litany of letters and responses continued, punctuated at intervals
by the bell of the telephone on the table by his bedside, and so on
through the breakfast, now laid in an adjoining study, until it was
time to telephone to the stables for his automobile. Same telephone
message occupied fifteen minutes. Just before leaving he sent to his
wife's room to find out where he was dining. Madame was being
massaged, but sent word that they were giving a dinner-party at
Sherry's, having three boxes at the theatre afterwards, and that then
she expected him to come to the Astorbilts' ball. Long cigar, fur
coat, gloves, and into the automobile, his secretary sitting beside
him, still going through the unfinished letters.
Three inches of snow had fallen during the night--hard, dry snow, on
which the horses slipped and struggled as it was being beaten flat,
and on which his automobile would have skidded ungovernably if Fifth
Avenue had not been already well sprayed by the sand-sprinklers.
Progress in the upper part of the Avenue was rapid enough; but from
Madison Square slow, halting, and intermittent, horses were falling
in all directions, stopping the surface-cars packed with a multitude
of toilers, all going city-wards; the gong of the automobile clanged
petulantly. Down town the upper altitudes of the sky-scrapers were
lost in a vague mist of swirling snow that eddied through the
chasm-like clefts between them--there were gaps where other gigantic
iron frames were rising up to the rattling Maxim-gun-like sound of the
steam riveters.
At length they arrived at the high pilloried portico of the immense
building in which his office was situated; passing through the
revolving doors--mill-wheels perpetually kept turning by a stream of
humanity--one of a number of elevators brought him to the floor
entirely occupied by his offices. The walls and counters were of white
grey-lined marble; polished mahogany desks and burnished brass
railings glistened everywhere. Through waiting-rooms and offices he
passed to his private office. It was a plain room, richly carpeted,
soft leather chairs, a big table on which were only a few papers; a
telephone stood on the right-hand side of the blotter. There were some
maps on the walls, nothing more. On a mahogany stand against the wall
in the centre of the room, near his desk, stood the ticker, like a
sacred image on a pedestal. Strange little god, mysterious little
oracle--I don't think I would have felt surprised if on entering he
had knelt down before it and said a short prayer. Instead, he seated
himself at his desk and commenced speaking into the telephone. There
was a switch-board of his private exchange outside the private office
which communicated to each of the heads of his departments. Without
the delay of sending or going for them, he spoke to six or seven one
after the other. Then his confidential clerk came in with a number of
papers in his hands. Tickety, tickety, tick, the oracle was speaking
all the time, but he took no notice of its remarks--still it went on,
as if knowing that sooner or later he would be drawn towards it; and
so he was, and passed the tape through his fingers, pausing here and
there; and so throughout the day that little chattering fetish
dominated him and every one that entered the room. Men came in, and
while waiting, or in a pause in conversation, would be drawn to see
what was on its tongue. There is nothing more striking about business
in New York than the ease and rapidity with which business is carried
out. There had been a bad break in sugar in the morning; X. meant to
have some if it came to a certain figure. All the morning down, down,
it toppled. Within a few seconds of the time a deal was made from the
centre of the Stock Exchange it appeared on the tape in X.'s office.
It dropped to his price. "Now, time this," said he; "1204 I want. Buy
me 5000 sugar at 92" (twenty seconds gone). "He has got my message,
and I am holding the wire till I get a reply. Now he has sent it on
his private wire to the Stock Exchange; his own telephone-boy has
already his number on the telegraph-board. If he is not immediately
available a two-dollar broker will execute the order." Here comes the
reply: "3000 at 92 was all he could get at the price." (Time, 1 min.
35 sec.) To those who are used to the aggravating slowness of the
telephone in London, that in New York is a revelation of rapidity, and
so much does it enter into the daily life of the community that it
would now give something like a stroke of paralysis to the City if all
the telephone-wires should be suddenly swept down or the operators
suddenly go on strike.
A lunch at the luxuriously furnished Club situated at the top of the
building, and not such a serious interruption to business, as during
it three messengers come with notes from his office for him. Not much
time to dawdle over lunch, as he had three meetings to preside at
during the afternoon; then up to the Union Club, a few moments' chat
with some friends--change into evening clothes, on to Sherry's--inside
the door of the great restaurant he sees a number of people he knows.
"Hallo, you, with whom are you dining to-night?" "Why, with you."
"Glad of it." Then he sees Mr. Sherry, and finds his table to see how
many he has dining with him. A little late, but radiant in a Worth
gown and wearing black pearls, his wife arrives--it is the first time
he has seen her during the day.
"So sorry to be late, poppa, but that last rubber of bridge was such a
slow one, and I won eight dollars." "Good for you." After dinner he
sits in the back of the box; the play or the plot does not interest
him; his mind is full of more dramatic scenes--plots that, instead of
play, can be made into reality--real live characters that he could
make dance to the music of his millions. Then on to that great ball in
one of the palaces of Fifth Avenue, a palace to which architects,
painters, sculptors, have combined to raise into a dream of luxury
such as Rome never equalled.
Strolling through the picture-gallery with an old friend, she who,
though born to millions, kept fresh that perfume of womanliness which
we call charm: "You look tired to-night," said he. "No wonder; out
every night now for four months; lunches, bridge, calls, dinners,
theatres, suppers, dances, and the treadmill never stops. I sometimes
wish Tom only owned a tiny cottage, and that I had to cook his dinner
for him." "And that you might ask me to dine off pork and beans."
"You, too, look tired, my master of millions." "I am," said he, "but I
am not master of millions, it is the millions who are my
master--slave-masters with many-lashed whip that keep me hourly
toiling in their service, that never let me rest, keep me working and
fighting, and have robbed me of repose, keep a glare of limelight on
my life, and after all can buy so little, not real success (I was
beaten this week by K. in that Union-Pacific deal), not one drop of
blue blood into my veins, not one night of sound delicious sleep, not
one kiss from the lips of love."