He is a count, a duke and a prince as well as a fellow who can get away with squiring a blond model about half his age.

Squiring the two bankers into the offices of the fund managers was William J. Popejoy, who has experienced the pain of real-estate cycles first hand.

His teammates kept squiring Korbel Brut over his head, and his eyes smarted as he gave interviews, alternating between English and Spanish.

The hero, Jean Valjean, has fallen to Gary Morris, the country singer fondly remembered for his noble squiring of Linda Ronstadt in the Public Theater's pop "Boheme."

Many of them complain that Mr. Bacanovic has been lampooned in the news media as a society lightweight, cited more for his squiring of Park Avenue grandes dames than for his considerable accomplishments as one of Merrill Lynch's top-performing brokers.

In the final analysis, what mattered to Noyes was how well or how poorly each of his actions served the interests of John Roditis, and in squiring Elena Volterra to Jubilisle he was in a position to serve Roditis handsomely.