The Great Gatsby

might soon be about, and he provided for such contingencies by
reposing more and more trust in Gatsby. The arrangement lasted five
years, during which the boat went three times around the Continent.
It might have lasted indefinitely except for the fact that Ella Kaye
came on board one night in Boston and a week later Dan Cody
inhospitably died.

I remember the portrait of him up in Gatsby’s bedroom, a grey, florid
man with a hard, empty face—the pioneer debauchee, who during one
phase of American life brought back to the Eastern seaboard the savage
violence of the frontier brothel and saloon. It was indirectly due to
Cody that Gatsby drank so little. Sometimes in the course of gay
parties women used to rub champagne into his hair; for himself he
formed the habit of letting liquor alone.

And it was from Cody that he inherited money—a legacy of twenty-five
thousand dollars. He didn’t get it. He never understood the legal
device that was used against him, but what remained of the millions
went intact to Ella Kaye. He was left with his singularly appropriate
education; the vague contour of Jay Gatsby had filled out to the
substantiality of a man.

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