rious things which the American multi-millionaire always
wants to blossom or bloom into and which he does not always succeed in
doing. De Shay was one of those odd natures so common to the
metropolis--half artist and half man of fashion who attach themselves so
readily to men of strength and wealth, often as advisors and counselors
in all matters of taste, social form and social progress. How this
particular person was rewarded I never quite knew, whether in cash or
something else. He was also a semi-confidant of mine, furnishing me
"tips" and material of one sort and another in connection with the
various 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