ever found out.'
'I'm not going to tell them if you don't,' said Abel.
'Now I know I chose the right man, even if he bargains a damn sight better than a Yankee with six daughters.' He slapped the side of his chair. 'I agree to your terms, Abel.'
'Will you be requiring references, Mr. Leroy?'
'References. I know your background and history since you left Europe right through to you getting a degree in economics at Columbia. What do you think I've been doing the last few days? I wouldn't put someone who needed re - ferences in as number two in my best hotel. When can you start?'
'A month from today.'
'Good. I look forward to seeing you then, Abel!
Abel rose from the hotel chair; he felt happier standing. He shook hands with Mr. Davis Leroy, the man from table seventeen - the one that was strictly for unknowns.
Leaving New York and the Plaza Hotel, his first real home since the castle near Slonim, turned out to be more of a wrench than Abel had anticipated.
Goodbyes to George, Monika~ and his few Columbia friends were unexpectedly hard. Jarnmy and the waiters threw a farewell party for him.
'We haven't heard the last of you, Abel Rosnovski," Sammy said, and they all agreed.
The Richmond Continental in Chicago was well - placed on Michigan Avenue, in the heart of the fastest growing city in America. That pleased Abel, who was only too familiar with Ellsworth Statler's maxim that just three things about a hotel really mattered : position, position and position. Abel soon discovered that position was about the only good thing that the Richmond had. Davis Leroy had understated the case when he had said that the hotel was a little run down. Desmond Pacey, the manager, wasn't slow and gentle as Davis Leroy had described him; he was plain lazy and didn't endear himself to Abel by allocating him a tiny room in the staff annex across the road and leaving him out of the main hotel. A quick check on the Richmond's books revealed that the daily occupancy rate was running at less than forty per cent, and that the restaur - ant was never more than half full, not least of all because the food was so appalling. The staff spoke three or four languages among them., none of which seemed to be English, and there were ccrtainly not any signs of welcome for the stupid Polack from New York. It was not hard to see why the last assistant manager had left in such a hurry.
If the Richmond was Davis Leroy's favourite hotel, Abel feared for the other ten in the group, even though his new employer seemed to have a bottomless pot of gold at the end of his Texas rainbow.
The best news that Abel learned during his first days in Chicago was that Melanie Lexoy was an only child, William and Matthew started their freshmen year at Harvard in the fall of 1924. Despite his grandmothers' disapproval William accepted the Hamilton Memorial Scholarship and at a cost of two hundred and ninety dollars, treated himself to 'Daisy', the latest Model T Ford, and first real love of his life. He painted Daisy bright yellow, which halved her value and doubled the number of his girlfriends. Calvin Coolidge won a landslide election to return to the White House and the volume on the New York Stock Exchange reached a five - year record of two million, three hundred and thirty - six thousand, one hundred and sixty shares.
Both young men (we can no longer refer to them as children, pronounced Grandmother Cabot) had been looking forward to college. After an energetic summer of tennis and golf, they were ready get down to more serious pursuits, William started work on the day he anived in their new room on the 'Gold Coast', a considerable improvement on their small study at St. Paiil's, while Matthew went in search of the university rowing club. Matthew was elected to captain the freshmen crew, and William left his books every Sunday afternoon to watch his friend from the banks of the Charles River. He covertly enjoyed Matthew's success but was outwardly scathing.
'Life is not about eight big men pulling unwieldy pieces of misshapen wood through choppy water while one smaller man shouts at them,' declared William haughtily.
'Tell Yale that,' said Matthew.
William, meanwhile, quickly demonstrated to his mathematics professors that he was in his studies what Matthew was in sport - a mile ahead of the