It was flood-tide along Fifth Avenue; motor, brougham, and victoria swept by on the glittering current; pretty women glanced out from limousine and tonneau; young men of his own type, silk-hatted, frock-coated, the crooks of their walking sticks tucked up under their left arms, passed on the Park side.

[…] she fondly believes that ten millions of the free people of the Union will allow her and her seceding brethren to open and shut the portals of this mighty region at their pleasure.

In other words, they are cheap, and if fear of spending small amounts of money is a form of chrematophobia, then phobias abound in the world.

My guess is that he substitutes a schwa sound for the retracted r in final position.