Page:The Brass Check (Sinclair 1919).djvu/78

 CHAPTER XIII

IN HIGH SOCIETY

I had written a book showing what was going on at one end of the social scale. It now occurred to me to write a book showing what was going on at the other end. Who spent the money wrung from the wage-slaves of the Stockyards, and what did they spend it for? So came "The Metropolis," whose adventures I have next to tell.

The dramatization of "The Jungle" had brought me into touch with a play-broker, Arch Selwyn, who has since become a well-known producer of plays. We were having lunch at some hotel on Broadway, talking about our play-business, when I happened to mention the new novel I was writing. "Say! That's the real thing!" said Arch. "What you want to do is to get on the inside of that society game. Get a job in one of those Long Island country homes, and treat them to a real muck-raking!" We spent some time "joshing" one another over this idea. I was to get a job as steward on Howard Gould's yacht! Arch, who had a tendency toward stoutness, was to assist me by butlering in one of the Vanderbilt palaces!

Arch was chummy with a man named Rennold Wolf, who wrote gossip for the "Morning Telegraph," organ of the "Tenderloin" and the sporting world of New York. To my consternation, there appeared in the "Telegraph" next morning a news-item with these headlines:

UPTON SINCLAIR PUTS ON LIVERY

Other Servants at "The Breakers," the Vanderbilt Home in Newport, Catch Him Taking Notes

"JUNGLE'S" AUTHOR EJECTED

And in the detailed story which followed it was set forth that I had also been employed as a steward on Howard Gould's yacht. The concluding sentence read:

He says that he was ready to leave, inasmuch as he already had absorbed the salient features of Newport culture.

Now there are three or four main press-agencies whereby