The Metropolis | Page 8

and they went to their rooms down a corridor walled with
blood-red marble and paved with carpet soft as a cushion. Here were
six rooms of palatial size, with carpets, drapery, and furniture of a
splendour quite appalling to Montague.
As soon as the man who bore their wraps had left the room, he turned
upon his brother.
"Oliver," he said, "how much are we paying for all this?"
Oliver smiled. "You are not paying anything, old man," he replied.
"You're to be my guests for a month or two, until you get your
bearings."
"That's very good of you," said the other; "--we'll talk about it later. But
meantime, tell me what the apartment costs."
And then Montague encountered his first full charge of New York
dynamite. "Six hundred dollars a week," said Oliver.
He started as if his brother had struck him. "Six hundred dollars a
week!" he gasped.
"Yes," said the other, quietly.
It was fully a minute before he could find his breath. "Brother," he
exclaimed, "you're mad!"
"It is a very good bargain," smiled the other; "I have some influence
with them."
Again there was a pause, while Montague groped for words. "Oliver,"
he exclaimed, "I can't believe you! How could you think that we could
pay such a price?"
"I didn't think it," said Oliver; "I told you I expected to pay it myself."
"But how could we let you pay it for us?" cried the other. "Can you
fancy that I will ever earn enough to pay such a price?"

"Of course you will," said Oliver. "Don't be foolish, Allan--you'll find
it's easy enough to make money in New York. Leave it to me, and wait
awhile."
But the other was not to be put off. He sat down on the embroidered
silk bedspread, and demanded abruptly, "What do you expect my
income to be a year?"
"I'm sure I don't know," laughed Oliver; "nobody takes the time to add
up his income. You'll make what you need, and something over for
good measure. This one thing you'll know for certain--the more you
spend, the more you'll be able to make."
And then, seeing that the sober look was not to be expelled from his
brother's face, Oliver seated himself and crossed his legs, and
proceeded to set forth the paradoxical philosophy of extravagance. His
brother had come into a city of millionaires. There was a certain group
of people--"the right set," was Oliver's term for them--and among them
he would find that money was as free as air. So far as his career was
concerned, he would find that there was nothing in all New York so
costly as economy. If he did not live like a gentleman, he would find
himself excluded from the circle of the elect--and how he would
manage to exist then was a problem too difficult for his brother to face.
And so, as quickly as he could, he was to bring himself to a state of
mind where things did not surprise him; where he did what others did
and paid what others paid, and did it serenely, as if he had done it all
his life. He would soon find his place; meantime all he had to do was to
put himself into his brother's charge. "You'll find in time that I have the
strings in my hands," the latter added. "Just take life easy, and let me
introduce you to the right people."
All of which sounded very attractive. "But are you sure," asked
Montague, "that you understand what I'm here for? I don't want to get
into the Four Hundred, you know--I want to practise law."
"In the first place," replied Oliver, "don't talk about the Four
Hundred--it's vulgar and silly; there's no such thing. In the next place,
you're going to live in New York, and you want to know the right
people. If you know them, you can practise law, or practise billiards, or
practise anything else that you fancy. If you don't know them, you
might as well go practise in Dahomey, for all you can accomplish. You
might come on here and start in for yourself, and in twenty years you

wouldn't get as far as you can get in two weeks, if you'll let me attend
to it."
Montague was nearly five years his brother's senior, and at home had
taken a semi-paternal attitude toward him. Now, however, the situation
seemed to have reversed itself. With a slight smile of amusement, he
subsided, and proceeded to put himself into the attitude of a docile
student of the mysteries of the Metropolis.
They agreed that they would say nothing about these matters to the
others. Mrs. Montague was half blind, and would lead her placid,
indoor existence with old Mammy Lucy.