Karl May - "My Life and My Efforts"

Frederic Austin Ogg - "The Old Northwest, A Chronicle of the Ohio Valley and Beyond"

Margot Asquith - "Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II"

Georgina Pell Curtis - "The Interdependence of Literature"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: Her Weight in Gold

G >> George Barr McCutcheon >> Her Weight in Gold




A week later Mr. Van Winkle said good-bye to his sons, and they set
out upon their travels somewhat after the fashion laid down by those
amiable gentlemen who conceived fables and fairy tales and called them
the Arabian Nights. You may recall the Three Sons of the Merchant, and
the Three Princes, and the Three Woodmen, not to speak of innumerable
trios who served Messrs. Grimm and Andersen with such literary
fidelity.

The Van Winkle brothers started out rather late in life to make men of
themselves. Inasmuch as they elected to start in separate and distinct
grooves and as their courses were not what you might call parallel, we
are likely to gain time and satisfaction by taking them up one at a
time. We must not lose sight of the fact that they set out to acquire
three separate and distinct fortunes.

Courtney set sail almost immediately for a land where "Corky" was an
unheard-of appellation--or epithet as he was wont to regard it--and
where fortunes hung on bushes, if one may be allowed to use the
colloquialism. He went to France. It may seem ridiculous to seek
fortunes in France, but he was not looking for French fortunes. He was
much too clever a chap for that. He was after American money, and he
knew of no place where it was easier to get it than in France. By
France, he meant Paris. If one is really smart, one can find a great
many American dollars in Paris. For that matter, if one is a good
bridge player and has the proper letters--not of credit but of
introduction--he can make a splendid living in any land where
civilisation has gained a substantial foothold. Nothing is so amiable
as civilisation. It actually yearns for trouble, and it will have it
at any cost. It is never so happy as when it is being skilfully
abused. As a society parasite, Corky had learned that it is easier to
fool a man who has brains than it is to fool one who hasn't any at
all. He had come in contact with both varieties, and he knew. And as
for women, one can always fool them by looking pensive. They cannot
bear it.

Possessed of a natural wit, a stunted conscience and an indefatigable
ego, he had no fear that his twelve thousand, slightly reduced by this
time, would see him well along on his journey toward affluence.

Corky was well known in Paris. He had spent many a day and many a
dollar there. At this season of the year, the capital was filled with
New York, Philadelphia and Boston people whom he knew and with whom he
might have fraternised if he had felt inclined. But he aimed higher.
He hitched his wagon to the setting sun and was swept into the society
of Middle and Far Western tourists; people with money they did not
know how to spend; people who needed expert advice; people who
hankered for places at Newport but had to be satisfied with Sugar
Hills. His New York acquaintances knew him too well, but no better
than he knew them. They had no money to waste on education. They
needed all they could scrape together to keep the wolf out of Wall
Street. He had no use in this direful emergency for frugal society
leaders; he was after the prodigal climber.

Before he had been in Paris a week he was accepting invitations to
dine with solid gentlemen from Des Moines and Minneapolis and having
himself looked up to with unquestioned ardour by the wives thereof.
Was he not the gay Mr. Van Winkle, of New York? Was he not the plus-
ultra representative of the most exclusive society in the United
States? Was he not hand in glove with fabled ladies whose names were
household words wherever the English language is broken? Yes! He was
THE Van Winkle! The son of A Van Winkle! And what a WONDERFUL game of
bridge he played! It was a pleasure to lose money to him.

He soon found, however, to his discomfiture, that the daughters of
these excellent westerners were engaged to be married to young
gentlemen who were at work like himself in getting a fortune, but
along different lines. So far as he could find out, they were so busy
making headway in the commercial world that they wouldn't be able to
afford a trip to Europe until they were somewhere in the neighbourhood
of fifty-five or sixty. Their sweethearts were taking it while they
could.

If Courtney had been as good-looking as either of his brothers--or as
both of them, for that matter, because there wasn't much choice
between them--he might have played havoc with the chances of more than
one man at home, but he was no Adonis. To be perfectly candid, he was
what a brawny Westerner would call a "shrimp." There is no call to
describe him more minutely than that.

Most of his new friends wanted to have supper at Maxim's or to go to
the Bal Tabarin. They wouldn't believe him when he insisted that these
places were not what they used to be, and that Montmartre was now the
fashionable roistering ground. So he took them to Maxim's and was glad
of it afterwards. There wasn't a New Yorker in sight.

One night, after a rather productive game in the apartments of a
family from Cedar Rapids, he proposed a supper at Maxim's. His host
not only fell in with the proposition, but insisted on giving the
supper himself. Corky was very polite. He took into consideration the
fact that Mr. Riggles was a much older man than himself, and allowed
him to have his own way.

It was at Maxim's that he first saw the Grand Duchess. She wasn't
really a lady of title, but she looked the part so completely that he
spoke of her as the "Grand Duchess" the instant his shifty gaze fell
upon her. That is to say, she was painted, bewrinkled, bewigged,
begowned, bejewelled and--(I was about to say be-dabbed)--for all the
world like a real duchess, and she smoked a long cigarette in a still
longer holder, and blew smoke through her nostrils with great APLOMB
and but very few coughs.

His companions bowed to her. She waved her hand in amiable response.

"Who is she?" demanded Corky of his hostess. He almost whispered it.

"Oh, she's a silly old thing from Wisconsin. Did you ever see such a
get-up?"

"It's marvellous. I thought she was a grand duchess."

"That's what SHE thinks, if airs count for anything. I think she's a
freak."

"I suppose she was good-looking in her day," remarked his hostess's
husband, appraising the grande dame with calculating eyes.

"Do you think they're real?" asked Corky, and his hostess said she
thought they were. He did not give a name to them, but they were so
overpoweringly prominent that she knew what he meant. It was almost
impossible to see anything but pearls when one looked in the direction
of the Grand Duchess. Corky couldn't help thinking how dangerous it
was for the lady to wear such a fortune at Maxim's.

He listened with keen ears to the story of the "silly old thing from
Wisconsin." She was a widow of sixty-five and she had been traversing
Europe from end to end for several years in quest of a coronet. Many
millions in gold had she, but even the most impecunious of noblemen
had given them a wide berth,--reluctantly, perhaps. Reversing the
order of things, she was not seeing Europe; she was letting Europe see
her.

No one in Maxim's so gay and kittenish and coy as she! She was the
essence of youth. Her hair was as yellow as gold and so thick and
undulating that one could not help wondering how far down her back it
would drop if released. Her lips were red with the rich, warm blood of
youth and her cheeks bore the bloom of the peach. The Grand Duchess
was a creation. To make sure that every one knew she was present, she
chattered in a high, shrill voice in Malapropian French, and giggled
at everything.

"She is amazing," said Corky for the third time during supper. "And no
one will marry her?"

"Not recently," said his host. "What do you mean?"

"I mean no one has married her in the last forty years. There WAS one,
of course, but he died a few years back. That's why she wears a pearl
mourning wreath around her neck, and a cloth-of-gold gown. He was in
trade, as the English would say."

"She IS amazing," said Corky for the fourth time. "By Jove, do you
know I'd like to meet her."

"Nothing so easy," said the other. "Come along now. I'll present you.
She'll be tickled to death to meet a real Van Winkle."

Five minutes later Corky was drinking his own health in the presence
of the Grand Duchess from Wisconsin.

"I have heard so much of you, Mr. Van Winkle," she said. "Is it true
that you are a descendant of that aristocratic old Rip?"

Corky couldn't help blushing. He begged her not to get her Van Winkles
mixed, and she tapped him on the knuckles with her pearl-studded fan.

At five o'clock that morning, Corky stood before the mirror in his
bed-chamber and stared very intently at his somewhat wavering
features. Notwithstanding the champagne, he recognised a very stern
resolve in the reflection.

"I'm going to marry that woman," he said with grave precision.




CHAPTER II

THE GRAND DUCHESS


He went about it deliberately. According to report, the Grand Duchess
was worth fifteen millions. Corky was not satisfied to accept rumour
as fact, so he undertook an investigation on his own account. From
reliable sources, he soon learned that she possessed but ten millions,
but, he argued, it was better to know it in the beginning than to wait
until she died to find out that her fortune had undergone the
customary shrinkage. Moreover, he ascertained that she frequented half
the baths in Europe in the effort to prolong a fast declining sense of
humour--on the principle, no doubt, that life is a joke and death is
not. She had a family of grown children in the States, but even that
did not alarm Corky. He felt sure there would be enough to go around.
Of course, it wasn't the nicest thing in the world being married to a
woman more than twice one's age, but if everything went as he hoped,
it might not be so very long before he could begin looking about for a
wife half as old as himself. One sickening fear troubled him, however.
She might insist on a house at Newport and a seat in the Inner Circle.
She had that look about her.

He had the shrewdness to treat her with the disdain that his social
position warranted. It was part of his plan of action to make her long
for the opportunity to look down upon people instead of forever
staring up at them from a grovelling attitude. He knew her kind as he
knew the first three letters of the alphabet. On the other hand, he
was politely attentive, incomparably epigrammatic, and as full of
exquisite mannerisms as the famous Brummel himself. In a word, he was
THE Van Winkle, and she but a passer-by.

By day he schemed, by night he lifted orisons to the gods and dreamed
of the fruits thereof. Something seemed to tell him that if he didn't
get her before she was sixty-six the quest would be hopeless.
Experience had shown him that women see themselves as they really are
after they are past sixty-five. Moreover, they become absolutely
insane on the subject of self-preservation so far as money is
concerned. They seem to feel that their rainy day is imminent, if not
actually at hand. No matter how many millions they may possess, they
lurk in the shadow of the poor-house. Men at sixty-five become
podagrical and sour, perhaps, but they are not as much worried by
thoughts of the poorhouse as they are by visions of the play-house.

Corky was to be seen everywhere with the Grand Duchess. (We may as
well continue to speak of her as the Grand Duchess since every one in
Paris was calling her that, now that she had been so aptly dubbed by
the clever Mr. Van Winkle.) He drove in the Bois with her, and he
drove without shame or embarrassment. He was the life of her big and
little feasts at Pre Catalin and D'Armenonville. He sat in her box at
the Opera; he translated the conspicuously unspeakable passages in all
of the lively but naive comedies; he ordered her champagnes and
invented hors d'oeuvres so neoterical in character that even the
Frenchmen applauded his genius. And, through all, he was managing very
nicely to keep his twelve thousand snugly to himself.

There were times when he could have cursed his own father--and perhaps
did--but that is not relevant to this narrative.

In proper sequence he led the Grand Duchess through all the reflected
phases of society and came at last to the juncture where his own
adroitness told him it was time to speak of the glories of Newport and
the wonders of New York as seen only from the centre of the inner
Circle. There was a vast difference between the Outer Rim and the
Inner Circle; he did not say it in so many words, but she had no
trouble in divining it for herself. She was dazzled. She was beginning
to understand that a palace in Fifth Avenue was no more than a social
sepulchre unless it could be filled day and night with the Kings and
Queens of Gotham. She felt very small, coming out of the Middle West.

It wasn't very difficult for him to secure for her an invitation to
the American Ambassador's ball, or to the pacific functions ordered by
the French President, but it was not so easy to bring about
introductions to the New York women of fashion who happened to be in
Paris from time to time during the summer. The Grand Duchess read the
newspapers. She always knew when New York notables were in the city,
and she was not slow to express a desire to meet them. He could
arrange it, of course. And then, on meeting them, she would at once
insist on giving a dinner or a supper at Pre Catalin, or, on finding
that they couldn't scrape up a spare evening,--to make it afternoon
tea. Poor Corky shrivelled at such times.

"If she wasn't so DAMNED girlish!" he used to say to himself.

"Tell me," she said to him late one afternoon as they were driving
home through the Champs Elysees; "is it true that servants' wages are
lower in New York City than any place else in the country? I've always
heard so."

She was looking at people through her magnificent lorgnon, and people
undeniably were looking at her. There were many wonderful women in the
Bois that day, but none so worthy of a stare as she.

Corky pricked up his ears. It looked like a "feeler."

"Perceptibly lower," he said.

"And food is higher, they say."

"Ah," said he, "but so are the buildings."

"How much do you think I could live on per year in New York!"

"Why do you enquire?"

"For instance," said she. It grated on his nerves when she used such
expressions as "for instance."

"Well, it depends on how well you intend to live."

"I want to live as well as anybody else."

"Then I should say that you couldn't very well manage on less than ten
thousand a year." He knew he was equivocating but was fearful that if
he said a hundred thousand she would take alarm.

"That isn't very much," she said, with a perplexed frown. "I had an
idea that if I wanted to live in style it would cost somewhere around
seventy-five or a hundred thousand. I know a woman from Iowa who lives
at the Ritz-Carlton and goes about some--although not in the real
smart set--and she says it costs five or six thousand a month, just
puttering. Maybe you've met her out in society. Her name is Bliggs."

"Bliggs? Um! Name's not familiar. Of course, you CAN spend a hundred
thousand easily in New York if you get into the right set," he said.

"That's just the point," said she. "If I get into the right set. I've
got ample means, Mr. Van Winkle, if--"

"They scorn money," said he flatly.

She drew in her breath quickly. "I suppose they do," she sighed.
"Sometimes I really believe it's a handicap to have a lot of money."

"I know a good many charming Western women who have married into the
smart set," he said slowly.

"And did they stick?" she enquired.

"Stick?" he gasped.

"I mean, did they make good--that is, were they PERMANENTLY received?"

"Oh, yes! Some of them have become leaders. It's really only a matter
of marrying the right man."

She was silent as they drove across the Place de la Concorde.

"I suppose it's almost out of the question unless one does marry into
it," she said finally.

"Or UP to it," he suggested. His sordid little heart was beating
rather jerkily.

"Won't you stop in and have tea with me?" she asked suddenly.

He thought rapidly. "I'm sorry. I'm having tea with some New York
people at the Ritz. Awfully sorry. People I shouldn't like to offend
or I'd send an excuse. You understand, I hope."

Her jaws were set. He shot a furtive glance at the thickly plastered
face and inwardly pitied himself while outwardly rejoicing.

"Some of the people who entertain baboons at dinner, I suppose," she
said through compressed lips.

He smiled. "And poodles," he supplemented with perfect amiability and
more truth than he knew. She sniffed. "I'm afraid you don't approve of
our little larks. We've got to have something new once in a while or
we'd die of ennui."

"Umph!" was her simple response, but he noted the pensive, wistful
look in her eyes.

She set him down at his hotel. "Can't you dine with me at half past
eight? I sha'n't ask any one else. I'm terribly blue today. You WILL
come and cheer me up, won't you?"

"With pleasure," he said, bowing very low over her gloved hand, which
was amazingly lumpy with invisible rubies and diamonds. "So good of
you."

While dressing for dinner he repeated the oft-repeated process of
reducing the Grand Duchess to a tangible result. Supposing she had as
many as fifteen years longer to live, and supposing her income to be
only $400,000 a year, there was still compensation in the calculation
that he would be but forty-five and that no matter how extravagant she
might become there was small likelihood of the principal ever being
disturbed. (On one point he meant to be very rigid: she should be kept
out of Wall Street.) Furthermore, allowing for the shares that would
go to her three grown daughters and their husbands (if they had them),
he could be reasonably certain of at least three million dollars.
Fifteen into three million goes two hundred thousand times, according
to long division. Two hundred thousand dollars a year is what it came
to in round numbers. He figured it as a rather handsome salary, more
than he could earn at anything else. Of course, if it should happen to
be but twelve years, the remuneration, so to speak, would be $250,000;
eleven years $272,727 and a fraction; ten years $300,000; nine--well,
he even figured it down to the unlikely term of two years. And all
this without taking into consideration the certainty that her fortune
would increase rather than diminish with the years to come.

On another point he meant to be firm, even adamant. If they were to be
married at all, it would have to be without the least delay, In fact,
he would advise making rather a secret of it until after the ceremony.
Two weeks at the outside for the engagement period, he should say.
Something told him that if her daughters got wind of the affair they
would have the Grand Duchess locked up in a sanitarium for the
remainder of her days. Besides, the suspense would be terrific.

They dined tete-a-tete. She had gorgeous apartments in the Elysee
Palace Hotel; a private dining-room and a beautiful view of the great
avenue. The evening was warm. The windows were open and from the
outside came the noises of a Parisian night. A soft July moon lent
radiance to an otherwise garish world, and a billion stars twinkled
merrily. It seemed to Corky, as he looked up into the mellow dome,
that he had never known the stars to twinkle so madly as they twinkled
on this fateful night. There were moments of illusion when he was sure
that the moon itself was twinkling. He laid it to his liver.

The little gold clock on the mantelpiece was striking ten when he
began clearing his throat for action. He always remembered that it was
precisely ten o'clock, because he had to look intently at the
diminutive face of the thing to make sure that it wasn't striking
twenty or thirty. It seemed to go on forever. They were still in the
dining-room and quite alone. For some uncanny reason the Grand Duchess
had not giggled once since the coffee was served. She was ominously
patient.

"I've been thinking about what you said this afternoon," said Corky
irrelevantly. She had just mentioned the weather.

"Indeed?"

"Yes. You put an idea into my head. Now, please don't say it! It's
such a beastly banal joke, don't you know, that one about ideas. Would
you mind answering a few questions?"

She began fanning herself. "If possible, Mr. Van Winkle," she said.
"But I can tell you in advance that I never tell any one my age."

"Quite right," said he in a matter-of-fact tone. "It's nobody's
business." He appeared to be thinking.

"Well, go ahead and ask," said she.

"I don't know just how to begin."

"What is it you want to know?" she enquired encouragingly.

"How old are your daughters?"

"Oh!" she exclaimed, leaning back in her chair in a sort of collapse.
"What do you want to know that for?"

"Well, I'm leading up to something else, if you must know."

She brightened up a bit. "They're rather young, of course."

"Naturally," said he. "But HOW young?"

"Mary is--let me see--I can't just recollect--"

"You needn't be afraid to tell me the truth," he said graciously. "It
won't make the least difference."

"Well, Mary is thirty-three. She's the married one. Edith--"

"Is one of 'em married?" he exclaimed, his face clouding.

"She's divorced at present. She married a scamp in the East who wanted
her for her money, and--"

"Never mind," interrupted Corky hastily. "I don't care to hear the
family scandal. Where does she live?"

"New York City, most of the time. You may have seen her. She goes out
a great deal, I hear: I'm not certain whether she's gone back to her
maiden name or retains her ex-husband's. His name is Smith." "I see,"
said Corky, abstractedly. "Good looking?"

"Mary? Yes, indeed. Stunning. I'm sure you'll admire her, Mr. Van
Winkle."

"I wish you'd call me Courtney."

"I suppose I might just as well begin," she said resignedly. He
started, and was silent for a moment.

"The others: are they married?"

"No. Edith is twenty-five and Gwendolyn twenty-three. They're at
home."

"Why don't they travel with you?"

She looked positively aggrieved. "They are really very domestic in
their tastes," said she. "They were over with me three years ago, but
prefer America."

"Are they engaged?"

"Not to my knowledge."

"They'd tell you if they were, wouldn't they?"

"If they thought it was any of my business," she said sharply. Corky
was in no condition to flush. It was a pallid hour for him.

"I suppose they have ample means of their own," he ventured.

"They manage pretty well."

"Was nothing left to them outright?"

"Some real estate."

"I see. Everything else went to you?"

"Oh, dear, no. He left $10,000 to his only sister. I sued to get it
back, but lost. I always hated her."

"There was considerably more than $10,000 in the estate, of course,"
he said quickly.

She smiled and closed one eye very slowly. "I should rather think so,"
she said. He was silent, pondering deeply. "Can you think of anything
more to ask?"

"I'm trying to think if there is," he replied frankly. She gave him a
few minutes. "I can't recall anything more at this moment," he
announced. "Oh, just a moment! Was there anything mentioned in the
will about your never marrying again?"

"Not a word," said she triumphantly.

"Good!" said he, and arose somewhat unsteadily from his chair.

The Grand Duchess held up her hand to check the words on his lips.

"Sit down," she said brusquely. "I've got a few questions I'd like to
ask of you, Corky."

"Corky! Good Lord, don't call me THAT. Where did you hear that name--"

"I saw it in the Herald. It's the only thing I have against you. I
can't help thinking of you as a sort of monument to my poor dead
husband. Have I never told you that he had a cork leg? Well, he had.
He lost a real leg at Gettysburg. My husband was a big, brave man,
Courtney. He wasn't a polished society chap and he didn't know much
about grammar, but he was as fine and honest and noble as any man who
ever lived. But this is no time to discuss the qualifications of a man
as big and grand as my husband. It--it seems like sacrilege. What I
want to know is this: how old is your father?"

"What?"

"What is his age?"

"My fa--What's that got to do with it?"

"To do with what?" sharply.

He stammered. "Why,--er--with the qualifications of your husband."

"Nothing at all."

"Well, he's about sixty."

"Vigorous?"

"Good Lord! Certainly."

"And very rich, as I'm informed."

"All this is very distasteful to me."

"And your brothers? Are they worthy young men?"

"Of course," angrily.

"Don't flare up, please. And now, what is your income?"

"MY income? Why, this is positively outrageous! I--"

"Maybe I should have said 'allowance.'"

Corky swallowed hard. "I'm not a rich man, if that's what you want to
know. I'll be perfectly honest with you. I'm horribly poor."

Her face brightened. "Now you are talking like a man. You must not
forget I am from the West. We like frankness. And yet, in spite of
your poverty, you really are received in the Smart Set? How do you
manage it?"