The American Dream

Gatsby hesitated, then added, coolly: "He's the man who fixed the World's Series back in 1919."

"I'll tell you God's truth." His right hand suddenly ordered divine retribution to stand by. "I am the son of some wealthy people in the Middle West—all dead now. I was brought up in America but educated at Oxford, because all my ancestors have been educated there for many years. It is a family tradition."

those who accepted Gatsby's hospitality and paid him the subtle tribute of knowing nothing whatever about him.

"He's a bootlegger," said the young ladies, moving somewhere between his cocktails and his flowers. "One time he killed a man who had found out that he was nephew to Von Hindenburg and second cousin to the devil. Reach me a rose, honey, and pour me a last drop into that there crystal glass."

Take 'em downstairs and give 'em back to whoever they belong to. Tell 'em all Daisy's change' her mine. Say: 'Daisy's change' her mine!'

An hour later the front door opened nervously, and Gatsby in a white flannel suit, silver shirt, and gold-colored tie, hurried in. He was pale, and there were dark signs of sleeplessness beneath his eyes.

"It took me just three years to earn the money that bought it."

Americans, while willing, even eager, to be serfs, have always been obstinate about being peasantry.

Two o'clock and the whole corner of the peninsula was blazing with light, which fell unreal on the shrubbery and made thin elongating glints upon the roadside wires. Turning a corner, I saw that it was Gatsby's house, lit from tower to cellar.

To young Gatz, resting on his oars and looking up at the railed deck, that yacht represented all the beauty and glamor in the world.