Oldaker, wincing and turning to Miss Bines for sympathy, heard her say:
"Yes, do, Mr. Higbee! I do love those ragtime songs--and then have them play 'Tell Me, Pretty Maiden,' and the 'Intermezzo.'"
The talk ran mostly on practical affairs: the current values of the great staple commodities; why the corn crop had been light; what wheat promised to bring; how young Burman of the Chicago Board of Trade had been pinched in his own wheat corner for four millions--"put up" by his admiring father; what beef on the hoof commanded; how the Federal Oil Company would presently own the State of Texas.
Almost every Barbarian at the table had made his own fortune. Hardly one but could recall early days when he toiled on farm or in shop or forest, herded cattle, prospected, sought adventure in remote and hazardous wilds.
"'Tain't much like them old days, eh, Higbee?" queried the Crown Prince of Cripple Creek--"when you and me had to walk from Chicago to Green Bay, Wisconsin, because we didn't have enough shillings for stage-fare?" He gazed about him suggestively.
"Corn-beef and cabbage was pretty good then, eh?" and with sure, vigorous strokes he fell to demolishing his _filet de dinde a la Perigueux_, while a butler refilled his glass with Chateau Malescot, 1878.
"Well, it does beat the two rooms the madam and me started to keep house in when we was married," admitted the host. "That was on the banks of the Chicago River, and now we got the Hudson flowin' right through the front yard, you might say, right past our own yacht-landing."
From old days of work and hardship they came to discuss the present and their immediate surroundings, social and financial.
Their daughters, it appeared, were being sought in marriage by the sons of those among whom they sojourned.
"Oh, they're a nice band of hand-shakers, all right, all right," asserted the gentleman from Kansas City. "One of 'em tried to keep company with our Caroline, but I wouldn't stand for it. He was a crackin' good shinny player, and he could lead them cotillion-dances blowin' a whistle and callin', 'All right, Up!' or something, like a car-starter,--but, 'Tell me something good about him,' I says to an old friend of his family. Well, he hemmed and hawed--he was a New York gentleman, and says he, 'I don't know whether I could make you understand or not,' he says, 'but he's got Family,' jest like that, bearin' down hard on 'Family'--'and you've got money,' he says, 'and Money and Family need each other badly in this town,' he says. 'Yes,' says I, 'I met up with a number of people here,' I says, 'but I ain't met none yet that you'd have to blindfold and back into a lot of money,' I says, 'family or no family,' I says. 'And that young man,' he says, 'is a pleasant, charming fellow; why,' he says, 'he's the best-coated man in New York.' Well, I looked at him and I says, 'Well,' says I, 'he may be the best-coated man in New York, but he'll be the best-booted man in New York, too,' I says, 'if he comes around trying to spark Caroline any more,--or would be if I had my way. His chin's pushed too far back under his face,' I says, 'and besides,' I says, 'Caroline is being waited on by a young hardware drummer, a good steady young fellow travelling out of little old K.C.,' I says, 'and while he ain't much for fam'ly,' I says, he'll have one of his own before he gets through,' I says; 'we start fam'lies where I come from,' I says."