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Updated: June 26, 2025
A Hungarian orchestra was playing the latest Manhattan ragtime, at the far end of the piazza. It was, all in all, a scene of rare refinement, characteristic to a degree of the efflorescence of American capitalism. At one of the tables, obviously bored, sat Catherine Flint, only daughter of the Billionaire.
I might have expected as much from you!" retorted the Billionaire tartly. "You've got neither imagination nor " "Nor any fancy for wild-goose chases," said Waldron, easily, as he sat down in the big leather chair. "Air? Hot air, Flint! No, no, it won't do! Nothing to it nothing at all." For a moment the Billionaire regarded him with a look of intense irritation.
In silence the partners watched the press of traffic, each busy with his own thoughts, Waldron waiting for Flint to reopen fire on him, and the Billionaire decided to say no more till his associate should make some move. Thus the limousine reached the Staten Island ferry, that glorious monument of municipal ownership wrecked by Tammany grafting.
"It gets results?" queried Flint sharply. "It produces oxygen and nitrogen on a scale that indicates success, with adequate apparatus?" "Yes, sir. I believe so, sir. No doubt about it; none whatever." "Good!" exclaimed the Billionaire. "Now show us!" "With pleasure, sir. But first, let me explain, a little." "Well, what?" demanded Flint.
His partner, meanwhile, had drawn near the apparatus, and was studying it with a most intense concentration. Plain to see, beneath this man's foppish exterior and affected cynicism, dwelt powerful purposes and keen intelligence. "Explain what?" repeated the Billionaire. "As far as details go, I'm not interested. All I want is results.
Can you stand the one, and give me the other?" The Billionaire looked at him through his pince-nez, poised on that vulture-beak, with some astonishment. Then he smiled nervously, showing his gleaming tooth of gold, and answered: "Yes, I guess so. What's wrong?" "What's wrong? Everything! Catherine has broken our engagement!" For a moment old Flint sat there motionless and staring.
Ten minutes later, he was back again, helping old Flint undress. Long after the Billionaire was in bed, in the big, luxurious room, with its windows open toward the river the room guarded all night by armed men in the house and on the lawn outside he lay there thinking of his plot, chuckling to himself over its infernal cunning, and filled with joy at the prospects now opening out ahead of him.
I know people who have made much more money than I and whom I consider my inferiors in every respect. Many of our immigrants have distinguished themselves in science, music, or art, and these I envy far more than I do a billionaire.
With the power and experience I now have and one such man as you on whom I can depend I'd double my fortune every year. That means that in five years I will be a billionaire, and only forty-two. "Think for a minute what that means if you can! A billion dollars will double itself in seven years. At forty-two I'd be worth a billion. At forty-nine I'd have two billions.
A faint tinge of color began to liven the somewhat pasty cheek of the Billionaire. Waldron's big chest expanded and his eye brightened. Even the meek Herzog stood straighter and looked more the man, under the stimulus of the life-giving ozone. "Fine!" exclaimed Flint, with unwonted enthusiasm, and nearly yielded to a laugh. Waldron went so far as to slap Herzog on the shoulder.
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