The Washington herald., 1922-07-02
Chapter i.
ANTHONY PATCH.

tNenty-nNe, tWo years WoEo &hoeoJ
gone since irony. the Holy Ghost Of
this later day. had, theoretically at
least. descended upon him. Irony
was the dnal polish Of the shoe. the
ultimate dab Of the clothes brush. a
sort OF intellectual "There"-yet at
the brink OF this story he has as
yet gone no further than the con-
scious stage. As you first see him
he wonders frequently whether he
Is NOT without honor and slightly
mad. q shameful and obscene thin
ness glistening on the surface of
the world like oil on a clean pond,
these occasions being varied, Of
course, with those in which he
thinks himself rather an excep-
tional young man, thoroughly So
phisticated, well adjusted to his en-
vironment, and somewhat more sig
nifcant than any one else he knows
This was his healthy state, and II
made him cheerful, pleasant and
very attractive to intelligent men
and to all women. In this state he
considered that he would one day
accomplish some quiet subtle thing
that the elect would deem worthy
of a man. but a distinct and dynam-
and. passing on. would Join the dim
mer stars in a nebulous, indeter-
inmate heaven halfway between
death and Immortality. Until the
time came for this effort he would
be Anthony Patch-not a portrait
ic personality, opinionated, con-
temptuous functioning from within
outward-a man who was aware
that there could be no honor and
yet had honor who knew the So
phistry OF courage and yet was
brave.
A Worthy Man and His Gifted Son.
Anthony drew as much conscious
ness of social security from being
the grandson Of Adam ]. Patch as
he would have had from tracing his
line over the sea to the crusaders.
This is inevitable; virginians and
Bostonians to the contrary notwith-
standing, an aristocracy founded
sheerly on money postulates wealth
In the particular.
Now Adam J. Patch, more famil-
iarly known as Gross Patch" left
his fathers farm in Tarrytown
early in sIxty-one to join a New
York cavalry regiment. He came
home from the war a major.
charged into Wall Street, and amid
nrsch fuss, fume, applause and ILL
willS,he gathered to himself some
seventy-fve million dollars.
This occupied his energies until
he was hfty-seven years old. 1t was
then that he determined, after a
severe attack OF sclerosis, to conse-
crate the remainder of his life to
the moral regeneration of the
world. He became reformer
among reformers. Emulating the
magnificent efforts OF Anthony
comstock. after whom his grand
son was named. he leveled a varied
assortment of uppercuts and body
blows at liquor. literature. vice.
art. patent medicines and Sunday
theaters. His mind, under the In
huence of that insidious mildew
which eventually forms on all but
the few, gave itself up furiously to
( every indignation of the age. From
an armchair In the office of his
Tarrytown estate he directed
against the enormous hypothetical
enemy. unrighteousness. a campaign
which went on through fifteen
years, during which he displayed
|. himself a rabid monomaniac, an un-
| qualified nuisance and an intoler-
able bore. The year in which this
! story opens found him wearying;
his campaign had grown desultory;
1881 was creeping up slowly to
1895: his thoughts ran a great deal
on the civil war. somewhat on his
dead wife and son, almost infnites-
imally on his grandson Anthony.
In De faI
had married an anemic lady of
thirty. Alicia withers. who brought
him one hundred thousand dollars
and an impeccable entire into the
banking circles of New York. I'm
mediately and rather spunkily she
had borne him a son and. as IL COM
pletely devitalized by the magnif-
cence of this performance, she had
thenceforth effaced herself within
the shadowy dimensions of the
nursery. The boy. Adam Ulysses
Patch, became an inveterate Joiner
of clubs, connoisseur Of good form,
and driver of tandems-at the as
tonishing age of twenty-six he be-
gan his memoirs under the title
New York Society as I Have Seen
It" On the rumor of its conception
this work was eagerly bid for
among publishers, but as 1t proved
after his death to be immoderately
verbose and overpoweringly dull. II
never obtained even a private print
ing.
The Fifth Avenue Chesterfield
married at twenty-five. His wifs
was Henrietta Lebrune. the Boston
society contralto." and the single
child OF the union was. at the re-
quest OF his grandfather. christened
Anthony Comstock Patch. When
he went to Harvard the Comstock
dropped out of his name to a neither
he'll of oblivion and was never heard
of thereafter.
Young Anthony had one picture
of his father and mother together
so often had 1t faced his eyes in
childhood that II had acquired the
impersonality of furniture, but
every one who came into his bed
room regarded 1t with interest. It
showed a dandy of the nineties
spare and handsome. standing be-
side a tall dark lady with a muff
and the suggestion of a hustle. Be-
tween them was a little boy with
|. long brown curls. dressed in a vel
. vet Lord Fauntleroy suit. This was
Anthory at FIVE, the year of his
moth$r's death.
H,s memories of the Boston So
sify contralto were nebulous and
musical. She was a lady who sang
sang. sang, in the music room of
their house on Washington Square
sometimes with guests scattered
all about her, the men with their
arms folded, balanced breathlessly
h. ~ 81.