Page:Love and Learn (1924).pdf/171

 ardson Van Cleve II used to pick each dainty from the bill of fare. Honestly, you'd think our lives depended on the result of each decision he made from soup to nuts. He captured the open respect of the haughty head waiter, while our own garçon fairly fawned on such a master at eating. The various wines, different for each course, came in to William in their original baskets to be discussed at length; the meat, fish and fowl were first brought in uncooked direct from the admiring chef, etc. Oh, this boy was good, he was for a positive fact!

Hazel couldn't get her adoring eyes to focus anywhere but on William during the entire evening and even I began to get slightly impressed. The young man's table talk was chiefly financial—really, he used dollar marks for punctuation. According to his own story, he squandered six months of each fiscal year in Europe, mostly at one of his father's flock of châteaus and villas. He wished we could see his male parent's little place at Nice, or perhaps the villa in Italy would be more interesting to a couple of aristocrats like us, or again we might find the castle in Burgundy more fascinating. Honestly, he had us dizzy!

By the time we began to toy with the coffee, William had reached the top of his game. Waxing confidential, he remarked that his billionaire father headed a syndicate that was negotiating with the German government