"Look at the ways of the millionaire and you'll see," observed the
Idiot, suavely. "Given his million he gives up his house and builds
himself a small, first-class hotel in some big city, which for the
greater part of the year is occupied by servants. He next erects a
country palace at Lenox or at Newport. This he calls a cottage, though
it usually looks more like a public library or a hospital or a
club-house. Then he builds himself a camp, with stained-glass windows,
in the Adirondacks, and has to float a small railroad in order to get
himself and his wife's trunks into camp. Shortly after these follows a
bungalow modelled after a French château, somewhere in the South, and
then a yacht warranted to cross the ocean in ten days, and to produce
sea-sickness twelve hours sooner than the regular ocean-steamer, becomes
one of the necessities of life. Result, he never lives anywhere. To
occupy all his residences, camps, and bungalows he has to keep eternally
on the move, and when he thinks he needs a trip to Europe he has his
yacht got ready and sends it over, going himself on a fast steamer. He
meets his yacht at Southampton, and orders the captain to proceed
directly to some Mediterranean port, going himself, meanwhile, to
London. After a month of London he goes to Paris, and thence to the
Mediterranean port, where, after steaming aboard of the yacht for three
or four days, he sends the boat back to New York and returns himself by
the regular liner. Oh, it's a terrible thing to be a millionaire and
have nowhere to lay one's head, with every poorer man envying you, many
hating you, and hands raised against you everywhere."
There was a pause, and the assembled company properly expressed their
appreciation of the millionaire's hard lot by silence.
"The scheme has its advantages," observed Mrs. Idiot.
"Some," said the Idiot. "But think, my dear, of the town house with
thirty-nine servants; the Newport house with thirty-four; the camp with
sixty, including gamekeepers and guides; the bungalow with thirty more,
and the yacht with a captain, a crew, stewards, stewardesses, and a cook
you can't get away from without jumping overboard. Just think how that
would multiply your troubles. You would come to me from time to time and
ask me how I could expect you to discharge seven butlers and four cooks
in one morning, and no doubt you'd request me sometimes to stop in at
the intelligence office on my way home and employ a dozen housemaids for
you."
"But you would have a manager for all this," suggested Mrs. Pedagog.
"That's the point," observed the Idiot. "We'd have to have a manager,
and for my part I shouldn't relish being managed. What chance would Mrs.
Idiot have against a manager ahead of an army of servants of such
magnitude? We have more than we can keep in subjection as we stand now,
with this one small house. If it wasn't for Mary, who keeps an eye on
things, I don't know what we should do."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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