t' - -. _ Ml ~l- 11 1 /> f .*1 ' P-J”
Grace La Rue, whom Chandler won
after a coast-to-coast wooing and
quickly lost
OUT of the Amoskeag Bank, in
Manchester, N. H., a young man
came hurrying, waving in one
hand a thick package of crisp bank
notes.
“Now for joy,” he cried gayly to the
little group of friends who stood wait
ing for him at the bank door.
The young man was Byron D. Chan
dler and the package of bills he held in
his hand contained $10,000. It was the
first installment of the immense fortune
left him by his multi-millionaire father.
“Now for joy!” cried the young man,
who soon was to become known the world
over as the "Millionaire Kid,” and with
hiis friends and the $10,000 in banknotes
he set out to search for it.
All this happened more than twenty
years ago and almost ever since Byron
Chandler has been squandering millions
in his pursuit of joy in Boston’s cafes,
on New York’s Broadway, along the
Paris boulevards and in thrf gay night
resorts of London.
But the search on which young Chan
dler set out with such gay confidence
that morning in Manchester seems to
have proved a vain one. Even he him
self would probably be the first to admit
that the joy he was so eager to lay
hold of and whose promise has lured
him from one spendthrift center to an
other has always eluded him.
Time and again when he thought at
last he had it safely in his grasp, to hold
forever, it has vanished like thistledown
before the summer wind.
Smiles and kisses, lights and laughter,
the sparkle of wine and the lilt of mirth
ful music—all these the “Millionaire
Kid” has bought with his millions. But
of love and the other things which the
world’s wisdom teaches us bring endur
ing happiness, what has he to show,
after all these years of prodigal spend
ing?
Only the other day Luella Gear, Chan
dler’s latest wife, brought suit against
him for divorce. She is the third beauty
he has led to the altar only to lose again
—the third woman to be roused to a
realization that love and happiness re
quire something sounder in the way of a
foundation than the reckless flinging
about of the millions a Rober, industries.
God-fearing father piled up.
Chandler was barely old enough to
vote when he cauie into a good share of
his father’s fortune and Boston was the
first city he chose to dazzle with the
lavishness of his expenditure in the
pursuit of joy. And dazzle it he did.
The way he threw money about in Bos
ton’s hotels and cafes is still recalled as
marking the high water mark of youtnful
extravagance.
It is a rather curious thing, in view
of the three divorces and several breach
of promise suits that have since marked
his career, that ('handler seemed never
so happy, never so completely satisfied
with his pursuit of joy as when dazzling
some pretty woman with the glisten of
gold that poured from his pockets in
an apparently unending stream.
Wherever he went there was always
at least one beauty by his side. And no
price was too high for him to pay to
win her smiles or gratify her smallest
whim.
in those days, long hefoie hip flasks
“As she leaped to her feet in
some alarm, she saw her escort
approaching, dragging a push
cart piled high with
roses and carnations,
orchids, violets and
other blossoms enough
to stock a good sized
florist’s shop. ‘You wished
for flowers, my dear,’ he said
with a courtly flourish, ‘and
here are the best in the city
for you to select from’ ”
m How Byron
I I Chandler’s Pock
ets Bulging With
Money Seem Never
to Have Given Him a
Permanent Hold on the
_ i
Joy He Started Confidently
rsuit of So Many Years Ago
Luella Gear, the
latest of the wives
to decide that the
"Millionaire Kid"
leaves much to be
desired as a hus
band
had replaced the wine coolers in the hotel*
and restaurants, the Hotel Reynolds, on
Boylston Street, was one of Boston’s
gayest resorts. And quite naturally it
was the favorite haunt of the young
man from New Hampshire, who already
was winning his title of “Millionaire
Kid."
One night.Chandler had for a dinner
companion in the Reynolds Cafe an ex
traordinarily good-looking young woman.
Like many another beauty, she was a
restless, discontented creature, never
quite satisfied with anything.
On this evening, as she sipped her
champagne, it was the large ami costly
bunch of violets Chandler had bought for
her of which she complained. They
looked pale and withered, she thought,
and she wished she had something quite
different for a corsage bouquet.
For a time the "Millionaire Kid" lis
tened in silence to her petulant com
plaints. Then suddenly he excused him
self and left the table.
A few minutes later the complaining
beauty was startled by the crash of a
table overturning, the smash of break
«W£J
ing glassware, the
shouts of angry men
and the screams of frightened women.
As she leaped to her feet in some
alarm she saw her escort approaching,
dragging a pushcart piled high with rcscs
and carnations, orchids, violeU and
other blossoms enough to stock a good
sized florists’ shop.
"You wished for flowers, my dear,”
he said with a courtly flourish, "and here
are the beat in the city for you to
choose from."
In Boston to tlii* day they likr to tell
how the young man rushed into the
street, thrust a handful of hills under the
nose of a startled peddler and took pos
session of of his pushcart. Dumping the
stock of goods into the street, 'he trun
dled the cart to a nearby florist’s and
piled it high with as many flowers as
it would hold.
Then back to the hotel he went ami
gave the employees and guests the sur
prise of their lives by dragging *he
flower-laden
cart into the
crowded cafe and up
to the table he had
just left.
This was typical of the spectacular
incidents with which young Chandler
began to startle both America and Eu
rope always pursuing joy and never
really finding it.
At last, on a voyage to Bermuda, he
thought his pursuit was ended when
first hr looked into the eyes of pretty
Grace Streher. Me wooed and won her
in a few days’ time and they were mar
ried in spite of her family’s vigorous
objections.
But Chandler's joy was short lived.
The young man who ns a bachelor had
kept scores of beauties singing his
praises and bathing him in smiles found
it quite impossible to hold the love of
a beautiful wife.
/\ftrr his first divorce Chandler was
quoted ns saying be would never marry
Byron D. Chandler and Mr*. Chandlei
No. 1 on their honeymoon
again, and perhaps he would
have kept his word if in a Bos
ton theater one night he had
not heard Grace I.a Rue sing
"My Sahara Belle.”
The gauzy Oriental costume
she wore gave the “Millionaire
Kid” an impression of her
charms that captivated him—
captivated him so much that
when she wouldn't marry him
promptly he followed her all
over the country, wooing her
almost every minute she was off
the stage.
Again the "Millionaire Kid”
felt sure that joy was his for
ever, and off to Burope he took
his bride to celebrate his tri
umph with a still more spectac
ular outburst of reckless spend
ing. ror weeks the
cables hummed with
reports of the reck
less way Chandler
was flinging money
about and of the
sensational gowns
he was buying for
Grace La Rue.
The hoy million
aire bought a $15,000 motor coach and
himself piloted it between London and
Brighton and Windsor in competition
with the late Alfred ti. Vanderbilt's
four-in-hand coach, "Venture.
But the public, especially the male por
tion of it, hail more eyes for tlrace La
Rue’s gowns than for her husband's
motor coach or the oceans of champagne
he bought or the handfuls of gold and
banknotes he threw to the waiters.
The one that brought perhaps the big
gest gasps of surprise was a tan gown
in which she appeared one afternoon at
the Longchiunps racetrack
This gown was described as a “noth
ing nothing” affair a thing of spidery
tracery, too flimsy for warmth and only
a trifle too substantial for a dream.
Chandler showed his devotion to his
fa
41 bride by keen resentment
of any reflection on her
modesty and good taste.
While returning to America on the
Mauretania Chandler heard some one
singing a saucy song about a woman'?
dress and at once interpreted it as a
sly dig at the gown his wife had worn
at Longchamps. He slapped the singer's
face and threatened to throw him o'
board.
Yet only a few week* later this ?anu
young husband was telling his wift
when she asked for money to buy more
clothes, to "go and earn it."
Grace La Rue did that very thing
Rut before she went hack to the stage
she filed suit for divorce and confided to
the public how sadly deceived she had
been in the desirability of the "Million
aire Kid" as a husband.
She declared that for months she had
been unable to appear in a decollete
gown because of the ugly bruises her
flesh bore as a result of the beating - ht
had given her. Time and again, she
said, he had pointed a revolver at her
and threatened to kill her.
After this second wife had left him
Chandler faded from view for quite a
1 ng time. It was said that he dissipated
almost the last penny of his fortune and
was dependent on an allowance from hts
wealthy mother, with a monthly bonus
for good behavior.
Eventually his mother’s purse strings
loosened a little and the “Millionaire
Kid" made enough out of some stock
market speculations to emerge from his
retirement and go searching again for
joy. Once more he thought he had found
it forever when he met I.ueda Gear, tl en
appearing in "The Gold Piggers."
And now this third romance of Chan
dler’s has g„nc crashing into what seems
to be fully as disastrous and hopeless a
wreck as the other two.
Now every body is wondering whether
the “Millionaire Kid” will keep right on
searching for joy in the same way he
always has or whether he will deeido
that he must ehoose a quite different
path if he is ever going to catch up
with it.