he was a failure - not in terms of the business , which still continued to flourish , not even in a social sense , where the wendelson name still managed to occupy a considerable column-width in every society magazine and newspaper gossip column , but in his fathers eyes he had failed simply as a man , as someone that his father would have been able to respect and feel proud of , as someone that he would have taken to the ball game , shared a joke with , drunk a beer with .