The Metropolis | Page 9

As for Alice, she was a
woman, and would not trouble herself with economics; if fairy
godmothers chose to shower gifts upon her, she would take them.
Alice was built to live in a palace, anyway, Oliver said. He had cried
out with delight when he first saw her. She had been sixteen when he
left, and tall and thin; now she was nineteen, and with the pale tints of
the dawn in her hair and face. In the auto, Oliver had turned and, stared
at her, and pronounced the cryptic judgment, "You'll go!"
Just now she was wandering about the rooms, exclaiming with wonder.
Everything here was so quiet and so harmonious that at first one's
suspicions were lulled. It was simplicity, but of a strange and
perplexing kind--simplicity elaborately studied. It was luxury, but
grown assured of itself, and gazing down upon itself with aristocratic
disdain. And after a while this began to penetrate the vulgarest mind,
and to fill it with awe; one cannot remain long in an apartment which is
trimmed and furnished in rarest Circassian walnut, and "papered" with
hand-embroidered silk cloth, without feeling some excitement--even
though there be no one to mention that the furniture has cost eight
thousand dollars per room, and that the wall covering has been
imported from Paris at a cost of seventy dollars per yard.
Montague also betook himself to gazing about. He noted the great
double windows, with sashes of bronze; the bronze fire-proof doors; the
bronze electric candles and chandeliers, from which the room was
flooded with a soft radiance at the touch of a button; the "duchesse" and
"marquise" chairs, with upholstery matching the walls; the huge leather
"slumber-couch," with adjustable lamp at its head. When one opened
the door of the dressing-room closet, it was automatically filled with
light; there was an adjustable three-sided mirror, at which one could

study his own figure from every side. There was a little bronze box
near the bed, in which one might set his shoes, and with a locked door
opening out into the hall, so that the floor-porter could get them
without disturbing one. Each of the bath-rooms was the size of an
ordinary man's parlour, with floor and walls of snow-white marble, and
a door composed of an imported plate-glass mirror. There was a great
porcelain tub, with glass handles upon the wall by which you could
help yourself out of it, and a shower-bath with linen duck curtains,
which were changed every day; and a marble slab upon which you
might lie to be rubbed by the masseur who would come at the touch of
a button.
There was no end to the miracles of this establishment, as Montague
found in the course of time. There was no chance that the antique
bronze clock on the mantel might go wrong, for it was electrically
controlled from the office. You did not open the window and let in the
dust, for the room was automatically ventilated, and you turned a
switch marked "hot" and "cold." The office would furnish you a guide
who would show you the establishment; and you might see your bread
being kneaded by electricity, upon an opal glass table, and your eggs
being tested by electric light; you might peer into huge refrigerators,
ventilated by electric fans, and in which each tiny lamb chop reposed in
a separate holder. Upon your own floor was a pantry, provided with hot
and cold storage-rooms and an air-tight dumb-waiter; you might have
your own private linen and crockery and plate, and your own family
butler, if you wished. Your children, however, would not be permitted
in the building, even though you were dying--this was a small
concession which you made to a host who had invested a million
dollars and a half in furniture alone.
A few minutes later the telephone bell rang, and Oliver answered it and
said, "Send him up."
"Here's the tailor," ho remarked, as he hung up the receiver.
"Whose tailor?" asked his brother.
"Yours," said he.
"Do I have to have some new clothes?" Montague asked.
"You haven't any clothes at present," was the reply.
Montague was standing in front of the "costumer," as the elaborate
mirror was termed. He looked himself over, and then he looked at his

brother. Oliver's clothing was a little like the Circassian walnut; at first
you thought that it was simple, and even a trifle careless--it was only by
degrees you realized that it was original and distinguished, and very
expensive.
"Won't your New York friends make allowance for the fact that I am
fresh from the country?" asked Montague, quizzically.
"They might," was the reply. "I know a hundred who would lend me
money, if I asked them. But I don't ask them."
"Then how