The Millionaires’ was the show club of the city, the one which the ineffably rich had set apart for themselves.  It was up by the park, in a magnificent white marble palace which had cost a million dollars.  Montague felt that he had never really known the Major until he saw him here.  The Major was excellent at all times and places, but in this club he became an edition de luxe of himself.  He made his headquarters here, keeping his suite of rooms all the year round; and the atmosphere and surroundings of the place seemed to be a part of him.

Montague thought that the Major’s face grew redder every day, and the purple veins in it purpler; or was it that the old gentleman’s shirt bosom gleamed more brightly in the glare of the lights?  The Major met him in the stately entrance hall, fifty feet square and all of Numidian marble, with a ceiling of gold, and a great bronze stairway leading to the gallery above.  He apologized for his velvet slippers and for his hobbling walk—­he was getting his accursed gout again.  But he limped around and introduced his friend to the other millionaires—­and then told scandal about them behind their backs.

The Major was the very type of a blue-blooded old aristocrat; he was all noblesse oblige to those within the magic circle of his intimacy—­but alas for those outside it!  Montague had never heard anyone bully servants as the Major did.  “Here you!” he would cry, when something went wrong at the table.  “Don’t you know any better than to bring me a dish like that?  Go and send me somebody who knows how to set a table!” And, strange to say, the servants all acknowledged his perfect right to bully them, and flew with terrified alacrity to do his bidding.  Montague noticed that the whole staff of the club leaped into activity whenever the Major appeared; and when he was seated at the table, he led off in this fashion—­“Now I want two dry Martinis.  And I want them at once—­do you understand me?  Don’t stop to get me any butter plates or finger-bowls—­I want two cock-tails, just as quick as you can carry them!”

Dinner was an important event to Major Venable—­the most important in life.  The younger man humbly declined to make any suggestions, and sat and watched while his friend did all the ordering.  They had some very small oysters, and an onion soup, and a grouse and asparagus, with some wine from the Major’s own private store, and then a romaine salad.  Concerning each one of these courses, the Major gave special injunctions, and throughout his conversation he scattered comments upon them:  “This is good thick soup—­lots of nourishment in onion soup.  Have the rest of this?—­I think the Burgundy is too cold.  Sixty-five is as cold as Burgundy ought ever to be.  I don’t mind sherry as low as sixty.—­They always cook a bird too much—­Robbie Waiting’s chef is the only person I know who never makes a mistake with game.”