other at the beginning of the 1880s, by the end of the decade he began to lose his grip on the orb and scepter of New York society. First, in 1889, he alienated the powerful society hostess Mamie Fish, also known as Mrs. Stuyvesant Fish, when he had the audacity to publicly criticize a dinner she gave, and he further humiliated her husband when he joked about an event the family was planning, by saying, “I am glad I had nothing to do with such a Fish ball.”
