He had been considerably bored of late--always a dangerous mood for him to fall into.

He was thirty-one.

For ten years he had paid far more than there had been any necessity to keep constantly amused, constantly interested.

Thanks to a shrewd ancestor who had bought large tracts of land in a part of Manhattan which had then been untouched by bricks and mortar, and to others, equally shrewd, who had held on and watched a city spreading up the Island like a mustard plant, he could afford whatever price he was asked to pay.
Whole blocks were his where once the sheep had grazed.
Ingenuity to spend his income was required of Palgrave.

He possessed that gift to an expert degree.