A conspicuously wealthy person, esp. one returned from India with a fortune.
A story told by a college friend — a story either exaggerated or even outright apocryphal — says that he and a group of college buddies studying in Vienna for a semester went to Warsaw for a few days. Among other Ugly American gluttonies they went out for dinner at what seemed to be the finest restaurant in town. For hours they ate and drank, staying past closing time as the wait staff kept bringing out more desserts and wine. When the students asked for the check the waiter allegedly raised his index finger and said “One dollar.” Steaks, wine, soufflés and pot roasts, all for one American dollar! The story is most likely exaggerated but a U.S. dollar probably did go a long way in Warsaw in the late 1980s. The students then allegedly left a $20 bill, a well-intentioned gesture that I think could have been interpreted as an insult, as in the song “Taxi Driver” by Harry Chapin, where Chapin’s rich ex pays him handsomely out of a mix of pity and disdain: “She handed me twenty dollars for a two-fifty fare and said ‘Harry, keep the change.'”
