ion 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, 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
send is for ten." "I know it," was the smiling answer--"but somehow I
thought eight seemed harder 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,
as sure as God made me! She was a well-known society woman, but 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!"

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 cro