First edition of this fast-paced novel set against the backdrop of a penniless Russian Prince exiled by the Revolution, who makes a deal with a clever Chicago fashion buyer to act as chauffeur and purchase the sumptuous "Car of Croesus," rented at exorbitant rates to patrons wishing to appear as millionaires.

Ernest Cook Poole (January 23, 1880 – January 10, 1950) was an American journalist, novelist, and playwright. Poole is best remembered for his sympathetic first-hand reportage of revolutionary Russia during and immediately after the Revolution of 1905 and Revolution of 1917 and as a popular writer of proletarian-tinged fiction during the era of World War I and the 1920s. Poole was the winner of the first Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, awarded in 1918 for his book, His Family.

Poole, born in Chicago, was educated at Princeton and went to live in the University Settlement House in New York, writing magazine articles advocating elimination of child labor, sweat shops, and slum conditions. After reporting on labor unrest in Chicago and an abortive revolution in Russia, he helped Upton Sinclair gather information for The Jungle and published his own first novel, The Voice of the Street (1906). The Harbor (1915) depicts the immigrant's experience. He served as a war correspondent in Europe during World War I and as a sympathetic observer of the Russian Revolution. His Family (1917), again treating the immigrant experience, won a Pulitzer Prize. Poole published over twenty fiction and nonfiction titles. ... Nurses on Horseback (1932) is an account of the remarkable work done in the Kentucky mountains by the Frontier Nursing Association. The Bridge (1940) is an autobiography.