middle-aged millionaires who are known to me in only the most casual
way; and he is a sort of gentleman-in-waiting--I believe the accepted
term is "pet cat"--to several society women, for whom he devises new
cotillion figures, arranges original after-dinner entertainments and
makes himself generally useful.

Like my two daughters he has arrived--absolutely; but, though we are
members of the same learned profession, he is almost a stranger to me. I
had no difficulty in getting him a clerkship in a gilt-edged law firm
immediately after he was admitted to the bar and he is apparently doing
marvelously well, though what he can possibly know of law will always
remain a mystery to me. Yet he is already, at the age of twenty-eight, a
director in three important concerns whose securities are listed on the
stock exchange, and he spends a great deal of money, which he must
gather somehow. I know that his allowance cannot do much more than meet
his accounts at the smart clubs to which he belongs.

He is a pleasant fellow and I enjoy the rare occasions when I catch a
glimpse of him. I do not think he has any conspicuous vices--or virtues.
He has simply had sense enough to take advantage of his social
opportunities and bids fair to be equally successful with myself. He has
really never done a stroke of work in his life, but has managed to make
himself agreeable to those who could help him along. I have no doubt
those rich friends of his throw enough business in his way to net him
ten or fifteen thousand dollars a year, but I should hesitate to retain
him to defend me if I were arrested for speeding.

Nevertheless at dinner I have seen him bullyrag and browbeat a judge of
our Supreme Court in a way that made me shudder, though I admit that the
judge in question owed his appointment entirely to the friend of my son