It is pretty certain that fully ninety-nine per cent. of these bloated plutocrats do not know where the next dollar is coming from. I have it on the authority of an American that “in introducing a man in high American society the introducer thinks it proper to say, ‘This is Obadiah S. Bluggs of Squedunk, Wis.—one of the richest men in the city. He’s worth his million dollars—ain’t you, Obadiah? And he’s president of a National Bank and owns a block of buildings on the main street. His wife has the largest diamonds in the northern part of the State, and his daughter, Miss Mamie Bluggs, gets her gowns in Paris, and uses lorgnettes.’ Such words of recommendation, I am told, move Mr. Bluggs to a profound delight. Within five minutes half the men present—this is true even of the most exclusive circles—will cluster around Mr. Bluggs to sell things to him; champagne, a horse, shares in a bogus mining company, or to ask him if Miss Bluggs is engaged, whether she is a blonde or a brunette, and whether he, Bluggs, thinks it is worth the questioner’s while to run up to Squedunk, Wis., take Miss Bluggs out buggy riding and size her up one afternoon.” It is highly probable that Mr. Millionaire Bluggs possesses no ready cash whatever, though he is prepared to discuss five-million dollar propositions in the loudest tones and in any quantity, and it is probable, too, that Miss Bluggs is neither a blonde nor a brunette that matters, but an ordinary good strong country girl whose principal diet is pumpkin pie and chewing gum, and whose single go-to-party gown was bought in Paris truly but fell to the lot of Miss Mamie Bluggs at third hand and at bed-rock bargain-day price, at the corner store in Squedunk, Wis. I have no desire to suggest that the millionaires of America as a body are in straitened or difficult circumstances, or that an American here and there has not succeeded in amassing vast sums of money. But I assert flatly that the great majority of them are not within a mile of being anything like so rich as they pretend to be, and that, taking millionaire for millionaire, they are an entirely Brummagem and specious company. They maintain all the appearances of riches, not on solid bullion or property, but on a little paper. They come like water and like wind they go. Since millionairedom became fashionable, New York State alone must have produced, literally, thousands of them.