at the time was his air of supreme
material well-being, his obvious attempt and wish not to convey it, his
carefully-cut clothes, his car, his numerous assistants and secretaries
following him here and there from various other organizations with which
he was connected.

M----'s idea, as he always said, was to spend and to live, only it
wasn't. He merely induced others so to do. One of his customs (and it
must have impressed L---- very much, innocent newcomer that he was) was
to have one or another of his hirelings announce his passing from one
"important" meeting to another, within or without his own building,
telephone messages being "thrown in" on his line or barred out, wherever
he happened to be at the moment and when, presumably, he was deep in one
of those literary conferences or confidences with one employee or
another or with a group, for which he rapidly developed a passion.
Another of his vanities was to have his automobile announced and he be
almost forced into it by impetuous secretaries, who, because of orders
previously given, insisted that he must be made to keep certain
important engagements. Or he would send for one of his hirelings,
wherever he chanced to be--club, restaurant, his home--midnight if
necessary, to confer with him on some subject of great moment, and the
hireling was supposed to call a taxi and come post haste in order that
he might not be kept waiting.

"God!" L---- once remarked in my presence. "To think that a thinking
being has to be beholden to a thing like that for his weekly income!
Somebody ought to tap him with a feather-duster and kill him!"

But the manner in which L---- developed in this atmosphere! It was
interesting. At first, before the magazine became so significant or
well-organized, it was a great pleasure for me to associate with him
outside office hours, and a curious and vivid companion he made. He was
so intensely avid of life, so intolerant of the old, of anything
different to that which he personally desired or saw, that at times it
was most difficult to say anything at all for fear of meeting a rebuff
or at least a caustic objection. As I was very pleased to note, he had a
passion for seeing, as all youth should have when it first comes to the
great city--the great bridges, the new tunnels just then being completed
or dug, the harbor and bay, Coney Island, the two new and great railway
terminals, then under construction. Most, though, he reveled in
different an