Chapter 4 opens with a cataloguing of Gatsby’s party guests: the Chester Beckers, the Leeches, Doctor Webster Civet, the Hornbeams, the Ismays, the Chrysties, and so on. From socialites and debutantes to the famous and the infamous, Gatsby’s parties draw only the most fashionable of people. One fellow, Klipspringer, in fact, was at Gatsby’s house so often and so long that he became known as simply “the boarder.”
One late July morning, Gatsby arrives at Nick’s and announces they are having lunch that day in New York. During the “disconcerting ride” to the city, Gatsby attempts to clear the record about his past so that Nick wouldn’t “get a wrong idea” by listening to the rumors. Nick is suspicious, however, when he hears Gatsby reveal that he was born into a wealthy Midwest family (in San Francisco) and educated at Oxford, “a family tradition.” After touring Europe, Gatsby served as a major in the military where he “tried very hard to die” but, in his own words, “seemed to bear an enchanted life.” As in testament to this disclosure, Gatsby is pulled over for speeding, but is let go after producing a card from the police commissioner for whom Gatsby had once done a favor.
