I enter the elevator and sink to the ground floor.  My valet and butler are waiting, the former with my coat over his arm, ready to help me into it.  Then he hands me my hat and stick, while the butler opens the front door and escorts me to my motor.  The chauffeur touches his hat.  I light a small and excellent Havana cigar and sink back among the cushions.  The interior of the car smells faintly of rich upholstery and violet perfume.  My daughters have been to a ball the night before.  If it is fine I have the landaulette hood thrown open and take the air as far as Washington Square—­if not, I am deposited at the Subway.

Ten o’clock sees me at my office.  The effect of the coffee has begun to wear off slightly.  I am a little peevish with my secretary, who has opened and arranged all my letters on my desk.  There are a pile of dividend checks, a dozen appeals for charity and a score of letters relating to my business.  I throw the begging circulars into the waste-basket and dictate most of my answers in a little over half an hour.  Then come a stream of appointments until lunchtime.

On the top floor of a twenty-story building, its windows commanding a view of all the waters surrounding the end of Manhattan Island, is my lunch club.  Here gather daily at one o’clock most of the men with whom I am associated—­bankers, railroad promoters and other lawyers.  I lunch with one or more of them.  A cocktail starts my appetite, for I have no desire for food; and for the sake of appearances I manage to consume an egg Benedictine and a ragout of lamb, with a dessert.

Then we wander into the smoking room and drink black coffee and smoke long black cigars.  I have smoked a cigar or two in my office already and am beginning, as usual, to feel a trifle seedy.  Here we plan some piece of business or devise a method of escaping the necessity of fulfilling some corporate obligation.

Two or half-past finds me in my office again.  The back of the day is broken.  I take things more easily.  Later on I smoke another cigar.  I discuss general matters with my junior partners.  At half-past four I enter my motor, which is waiting at the Wall Street entrance of the building.  At my uptown club the men are already dropping in and gathering round the big windows.  We all call each other by our first names, yet few of us know anything of one another’s real character.  We have a bluff heartiness, a cheerful cynicism that serves in place of sincerity, and we ask no questions.

Our subjects of conversation are politics, the stock market, “big” business, and the more fashionable sports.  There is no talk of art or books, no discussion of subjects of civic interest.  After our cocktails we usually arrange a game of bridge and play until it is time to go home to dress for dinner.

Until this time, usually, I have not met my wife and daughters since the night before.  They have had their own individual engagements for luncheon and in the afternoon, and perhaps have not seen each other before during the day.  But we generally meet at least two or three times a week on the stairs or in the hall as we are going out.  Sometimes, also, I see my son at this time.