Characters Count

When I was young I acquired an (utterly undeserved,) reputation as a wit, by telling someone who inquired after what-I-wanted-to-be-when-I-grew-up, "a character."
Ha-ha.
Now THIS is a real "character":

Alan was a society man, a gentlemanly figure who frequented affairs like the Petroushka Ball at the Waldorf and the Military Ball at the Plaza. He was an expert waltzer and a wearer of white ties who spoke with an accent — the Palm Beach Lock-Jaw — I had heard only in Preston Sturges films.
...He wore top hats....he was from a family of Austrian bluebloods transplanted to New York. There had been, he said, a family fortune once; but, he added wistfully, “Mother lived too long.”

But there remains so much more to the story. Give it a read.