The villages along shore the world and its mistressreturned to Gatsby’s house and twinkled hilariouslyon his lawn.
“He’s a bootlegger，” said the young ladies， movingsomewhere between his cocktails and his flowers.
“One time he killed a man who had found out thathe was nephew to von Hindenburg and second
cousin to the devil. Reach me a rose， honey， andpour me a last drop into that there crystal glass.”
Once I wrote down on the empty spaces of a time-table the names of those who came to Gatsby’shouse that summer. It is an old time-table now，disintegrating at its folds and headed “This schedulein effect July 5th， 1922.” But I can still read the greynames and they will give you a better impressionthan my generalities of those who accepted
Gatsby’s hospitality and paid him the subtle tributeof knowing nothing whatever about him.
From East Egg， then， came the Chester Beckersand the Leeches and a man named Bunsen whom
I knew at Yale and Doctor Webster Civet who was drowned last summer up in Maine. And the Hornbeams and the Willie Voltaires and a wholeclan named Blackbuck who always gathered in a corner and flipped up their noses like goats atwhosoever came near. And the Ismays and the Chrysties （or rather Hubert Auerbach and Mr. Chrystie’s wife） and Edgar Beaver， whose hair theysay turned cotton-white one winter afternoon forno good reason at all.
Clarence Endive was from East Egg， as I remember.
He came only once， in white knicker bockers， andhad a fight with a bum named Etty in the garden.
From farther out on the Island came the Cheadlesand the O. R. P. Schraeders and the StonewallJackson Abrams of Georgia and the Fishguards andthe Ripley Snells. Snell was there three days beforehe went to the penitentiary， so drunk out on thegravel drive that Mrs. Ulysses Swett’s automobile ranover his right hand. The Dancies came too and S. B.
Whitebait， who was well over sixty， and Maurice A. Flink and the Hammerheads and Beluga the tobaccoimporter and Beluga’s girls.
From West Egg came the Poles and the Mulreadysand Cecil Roebuck and Cecil Schoen and Gulickthe state senator and Newton Orchid who controlled Films Par Excellence and Eckhaust andClyde Cohen and Don S. Schwartze （the son） andArthur McCarty， all connected with the moviesin one way or another. And the Catlips and theBembergs and G. Earl Muldoon， brother to thatMuldoon who afterward strangled his wife. Da
Fontano the promoter came there， and Ed Legrosand James B. （“Rot-Gut”） Ferret and the De Jongsand Ernest Lilly—they came to gamble and whenFerret wandered into the garden it meant he wascleaned out and Associated Traction would have tofluctuate profitably next day.
A man named Klipspringer was there so often andso long that he became known as “the boarder”—Idoubt if he had any other home. Of theatrical peoplethere were Gus Waize and Horace O’Donavan andLester Meyer and George Duckweed and Francis
Bull. Also from New York were the Chromes and theBackhyssons and the Dennickers and Russel Bettyand the Corrigans and the Kellehers and the Dewarsand the Scullys and S. W. Belcher and the Smirkesand the young Quinns， divorced now， and Henry L.
Palmetto who killed himself by jumping in front of asubway train in Times Square.
Benny McClenahan arrived always with four girls.
They were never quite the same ones in physicalperson but they were so identical one with anotherthat it inevitably seemed they had been therebefore. I have forgotten their names—Jaqueline， Ithink， or else Consuela or Gloria or Judy or June，and their last names were either the melodiousnames of flowers and months or the sterner onesof the great American capitalists whose cousins， ifpressed， they would confess themselves to be.
In addition to all these I can remember that Faustina O’Brien came there at least once and theBaedeker girls and young Brewer who had his noseshot off in the war and Mr. Albrucksburger andMiss Haag， his fiancée， and Ardita Fitz-Peters， andMr. P. Jewett， once head of the American Legion，and Miss Claudia Hip with a man reputed to beher chauffeur， and a prince of something whom wecalled Duke and whose name， if I ever knew it， Ihave forgotten.
All these people came to Gatsby’s house in thesummer.
At nine o’clock， one morning late in July Gatsby’sgorgeous car lurched up the rocky drive to my doorand gave out a burst of melody from its three notedhorn. It was the first time he had called on methough I had gone to two of his parties， mounted inhis hydroplane， and， at his urgent invitation， madefrequent use of his beach.
“Good morning， old sport. You’re having lunchwith me today and I thought we’d ride up together.”
He was balancing himself on the dashboard of his car with that resourcefulness of movementthat is so peculiarly American—that comes， suppose， with the absence of lifting work or rigidsitting in youth and， even more， with the formlessgrace of our nervous， sporadic games. This qualitywas continually breaking through his punctiliousmanner in the shape of restlessness. He was never quite still； there was always a tapping footsomewhere or the impatient opening and closing ofa hand.
He saw me looking with admiration at his car.
“It’s pretty， isn’t it， old sport.” He jumped off togive me a better view. “Haven’t you ever seen before？”
I’d seen it. Everybody had seen it. It was a richcream color， bright with nickel， swollen here andthere in its monstrous length with triumphanthatboxes and supper-boxes and tool-boxes， andterraced with a labyrinth of windshields thatmirrored a dozen suns. Sitting down behind manylayers of glass in a sort of green leather conservatorywe started to town.
I had talked with him perhaps half a dozen times in the past month and found， to my disappointment， that he had little to say. So my firstimpression， that he was a person of some undefinedconsequence， had gradually faded and he had
become simply the proprietor of an elaborate roadhousenext door.