The Game of Golf, a most peculiar banquet, a
social lion's fall and his escape from threatening
legal meshes, inspire Pierrepont's
pen.

Chicago, Sept. 20, 189—

Dear Father:

Your little joke about being almost well and about broke at Carlsbad strikes me as about the limit in sarcastic humor. It's always so easy for millionaires to talk about being broke, that they're about the only ones who do it. It's the same with clothes, you know. If I dressed like Russell Sage, you wouldn't have me in the lard department ten minutes. On the whole, I guess you'll get back somehow, even if you have to draw on London for a thousand or two.

I don't mind telling you that I'm doing great work in my new position. I don't know whether the manager of the lard section could do without me or not, but I'm dead sure I could do without him, for a more pompous ass never yet brayed in an office. He told me to-day that I ought to be very thankful for the accident of birth, and I countered on him by telling him he ought to be devilish glad my father was a good-natured man. I think that when you get home, we'll revolutionize this department. I can already see that there is great waste going on here; the amount of hog fat they are putting into the lard is simply scandalous.

While I think about it, I want to ask you if you can't find a good place for my old college friend, Courtland Warrington. Court is a perfect gentleman, and would be an ornament to the packing house, if you could only manage to keep him out of Milligan's way. I think that wild Irishman would kill him if he ever caught sight of his stockings. Of course Courtland ought to have something that wouldn't grate on his refined tastes and dignified style. Pasting labels on cans might do, but I don't think sorting livers would appeal to him. Anyway, I rely on you to fix up something nice and genteel for Court; he is very unfortunate in having an unsuccessful father.

I'll tell the Beef House people to look up the export cattle business, as you request, and tell it to 'em good and hard. If there's anything I like to do it's to give orders to fellows that are not under me; I believe this shows that I have the making of a successful business man concealed within me. I'd like to know, however, what this General Principle is you speak of as being in my department; up to now I never thought there was any principle in it.

Don't worry that I am to become a golf maniac, dear dad. My first day on the links was my last, and the article you saw in that Chicago paper about my appearance as a putter was very misleading. The fact is that I had gotten half around the promenade when I unfortunately allowed my brassy-niblick, or something of that sort, to come into contact with my caddy's head, and the game ended at the moment he was carried away on a stretcher. The caddy's father, a bullet-headed Dutchman, who was utterly unamenable to reason, had me arrested for assault and battery, and it made terrible inroads into my surplus to get him to withdraw the charge and to square the police reporters. No golf for Pierrepont, so you may calm your perturbed spirit. If I want highballs, I know where I can connect with 'em, and the place isn't a thousand miles from the packing house, either. Curiously, they have a concoction there known as a "Graham Fertilizer." I tried one, and I must say that the man who could drink two must have a stomach of brass.

Speaking of the stomach reminds me of a banquet. I can't imagine how it happened, but when the news leaked out that you had gone to Europe, so soon after calling me in from the road, the impression gained currency in some quarters that I had been placed in charge at the "House." You will appreciate that it's a pretty leathery sort of a proposition to have to go around denying a report that your own father has done the square thing by you, and explaining that you are in reality only first assistant manager of the lard department, and that a salt-pickled Celt named Milligan is still so far above me that I get a crick in the neck looking up at his exaltedness.

So I decided that the best thing I could do was not to deny the rumor and to accept all the honors likely to be thrust upon me. This may be obtaining distinction under false pretences, but it's less embarrassing than confessing that one's father is so thoroughly under the domination of a man who eats, drinks, sleeps and thinks pig, as to ignore the claims of blood and heredity. What could I do, for instance, when a number of friends proposed to give a banquet in my honor? If I had refused they would have said that I was a hog myself, besides being in the business; for people who get up banquets for other people are really only seeking an excuse to give themselves a good time. How could I disappoint them?

Anyway, the banquet came off on the appointed date. It was really an elaborate affair, the sixty guests sitting at tables fairly buried in flowers. It was doubtless thought to be a delicate compliment to the guest of the evening—meaning your only—that a few feet down the table at whose head I sat, and facing towards me, stood the life-sized figure of a hog, done in white roses and with a pail of our lard in its mouth; but I submit that there are better appetizers than a reminder of the source of our prosperity. I accepted the situation and swallowed the pig—metaphorically, of course—with all the grace I could assume.

The menu card at my plate was an elegant affair, evidently handwork, and was different in design from those of the others, although I was kept too busy in conversation with my neighbors to read it. The service of the dinner was perfect, the well-trained waiters moving noiselessly to and fro and depositing the various courses without a word. A special attendant had evidently been assigned to me and I appreciated the distinction. The food that he served me, however, was, to say the least, peculiar. The soup tasted queer—like medicine; the oysters were replaced by curious tasting lumps served on shells, while the fish course was fishy enough in smell, but tasteless.

I had eaten practically nothing, and when the entrees brought me only a spoonful of something that looked surprisingly like hash, I looked around at the other fellows. I saw twinkling eyes, some of which fell upon the plates in front of their owners. A glance at the plates of my nearest neighbors showed that they were being served with quite different food from that which reached me. I began to smell something familiar, and surreptitiously glanced at my menu. The first thing that struck my eye was this line in gilt letters at the bottom:

"This dinner prepared from recipes in Graham's celebrated booklet, '100 Dainty Dishes from a Can.'"

You should hear the roar that went up, as the crowd saw that I was no longer shut out of their executive session. I could do no less than order up a case of wine (which you, of course, will pay for and charge to advertising account), and after that they let me have something to eat. It's a terrible thing to have one's father's business chickens come home to roost so frequently. I did not recover from this affair for two days, which will explain the absence from the office, of which I have no doubt Milligan has duly informed you.

I have had a hearty laugh over your story of Hank Smith and his attempt to butt into Boston society with money, a brass band and fireworks. Hank made the great mistake of thinking that noise would go very far on Beacon street. And this just naturally reminds me of Baron Bonski, a self-made social lion, who had Boston's upper-tendom on tiptoe about the time I was a freshman in college. Bonski's method was the very antithesis of Hank's, and it worked as long as he chose to have it.

The Baron floated gently into Boston one spring day, armed with letters of introduction to a few of the literati from men of prominence in Europe. He straightway attended various "afternoons" of poets, artists and Bohemian philosophers. He was a little chap with a sad, pale face, dark and soulful eyes, a voice as mellow as new cider, and a gift of gab unceasing as the flow of the tides. He hinted at tragic love affairs and allowed it to get around that he had been expelled from Russia for revolutionary work. He was modest and retiring, and the more he retired at the literary functions the more people tumbled over themselves to dig him out. He made a distinct hit without doing anything in particular, except to look pensive and sow a crop of romantic rumors.

The Baron quickly got next the residence problem in Boston. He hired a room in a side street, just far enough off Beacon street to be cheap, and just near enough to catch the sacred aroma of that classic thoroughfare. He filled up his place with Oriental toggery, and kept it lighted dimly and religiously with queer Eastern lanterns. A mysterious odor always hung over the apartment. Here the Baron began to receive the swells at five o'clock teas, over which he presided with a huge samovar. The thing was so new, so captivating, so full of charm, that half the society women in town, including Mrs. "Bob" Tiller, the leading lady of the whole bunch, used to drop in quite informally.

They do say that the Baron became pretty well acquainted with the interiors, not to speak of boudoirs, of a good many of the great houses in town, and that his living expenses were pretty small during his first year in Boston.

But in an evil hour Baron Bonski fell. He decided that he wanted more money, and he could conceive no better way of getting it than by writing novels. He found a publisher easily enough, and then he used his knowledge of society people for his books. He paraded the foibles of his friends under thin disguises, and even trotted out Mrs. "Bob" as one of his leading characters.

The novels were pretty poor stuff, on the whole, but they got everybody hot, and the Baron's social star went down behind the horizon with a thud. Then his creditors began to worry him, his later books failed, ugly stories about his fraudulent title got around, and finally a brother novelist lampooned him. At last the town, which had warmed toward him at first, got too hot to hold him, and he resigned in favor of the next impostor.

I simply mention the Baron's case to show you that you can get into Boston society all right by knowing just how to do it, but that you've got to stick to your original rÔle if you want to stay there.

You will be gratified to learn that the little difficulty with Verbena Philpot and her pa is at an end. Although, when I asked your advice on how to meet the absurd charge, you politely informed me that it was my breach-of-promise suit, I know you will be glad not to find this particular Verbena blooming beneath your roof-tree. When you refused to aid me with your vast experience, I went to see George Damon, who graduated from Harvard Law in my sophomore year. I told him the facts and he looked so solemn that I made up my mind that all was over, and I tried to decide between Canada and South America as a place of residence. He never even laughed when I told him that old man Philpot had the reputation of bribing the drivers of rural conveyances to lose a tire off a wheel when they were driving by his place with an eligible stranger as passenger.

"You won't marry the girl?" he asked. With as much courtesy to Verbena as I could at the time command, I replied in the negative.

"How much can you give to settle the thing?" came next. I said almost any sum, but it would have to be in expectancy, for you had definitely declared yourself against any appropriation to take up mortgages for indigent farmers with beguiling daughters.

"But you must get out of this without publicity," he said. "You'd be the laughing stock of the town."

I admitted it sadly and he said he would do what he could. He began by writing letters, but Papa Philpot was evidently too old a bird to be caught by legal chaff. It was settle up, or marry and settle down, and that settled it. Finally, Damon told me that there was only one chance for me. He would go down to Doolittle's Mills and see the old man in person and try and argue him out of it. I was deeply grateful that he should make it such a personal matter, but he said it wasn't much, he needed a vacation anyway.

Well, he went about three weeks ago and I accompanied him to the railroad station in a great state of nervousness. Three days later I received a letter from him stating that, although he had not sounded the old man yet, he had some hopes. Two other letters reached me within the next week, but no definite result had been attained.

Then I heard no more and for the last fortnight I have dreamt of bridal wreaths that changed into halters and wedding-cake with iron bars embedded in the frosting. Yesterday I received this telegram:

"Niagara Falls, Sept 19.

I am on my wedding tour. Verbena sends kind regards.

George Damon."

I am much relieved, but my mind will not be at complete rest till I find out whether Damon is a modern martyr or just plain damn fool.

Your freed son,
Pierrepont.

P.S. I wonder if Damon—but there are some things in life before which even the most riotous imagination falters.

LETTER NO. XVII.