It also turned out that some big buckaroos, understandably averse to receiving an avalanche of phone calls from charities or scamsters that would follow such publicity, loathed being on the list. Nonetheless, the Forbes 400 drew scads of attention from the moment it was published. The list became capitalism's Rosetta stone, a decoding device for divining the American Way. Even prominent economists parsed it for social truths.

"At a trivial level, it is almost impossible not to be interested in Forbes magazine's annual list of the 400 wealthiest individuals, minimum net worth $150 million, and 82 wealthiest families, minimum net worth $200 million," wrote Lester Thurow, an M.I.T. economist, in 1984. "Subconsciously, we read their biographies hoping to find the elixir that will add us to the list. While the elixir -- a rich father -- is to be found (all of the 82 families and 241 of the 400 wealthiest individuals inherited all or a major part of their fortunes), it doesn't help most of us to point this out to our fathers."

Professor Thurow added: "Great wealth is accumulated to acquire economic power. Wealth makes you an economic mover and shaker. Projects will happen, or not happen, depending upon your decisions. It allows you to influence the political process -- elect yourself or others -- and remold society in accordance with your views. It makes you an important person, courted by people inside and outside your family. Perhaps this explains why some people try to persuade Forbes that they are wealthy enough to merit inclusion."

This, then, was the dividing line: Those who were secure enough not to reveal their wealth abhorred the Forbes 400, or at least tried to avoid it; those who were less secure, needed to keep score and had their identities wrapped up in the concept of billionairedom turned the list into a white-collar fetish. For the latter group, to be off the Forbes 400 represented emotional and social exile.

Donald, paradoxically, was a loner who did not want to live in exile. He was obsessed with the Forbes list. And his propensity for inflation, matched with Forbes's aversion to hiring the sizable staff it might need to assess accurately the wealth of each of its designated 400, got Donald on the magazine's inaugural list in 1982. Forbes gave him an undefined share of a family fortune that the magazine estimated at $200 million -- at a time when all Donald owned personally was a half-interest in the Grand Hyatt hotel and a share of the yet-to-be-completed Trump Tower.

Donald and the Forbes 400 were mutually reinforcing. The more Donald's verbal fortune rose, the more often he received prominent mentions in Forbes. The more often Forbes mentioned him, the more credible Donald's claim to vast wealth became. The more credible his claim to vast wealth became, the easier it was for him to get on the Forbes 400 -- which became the standard that others in the news media, and apparently some of the country's biggest banks, used when judging Donald's riches.

IN some years, Donald insisted on impossibly high figures for his net worth and then, in a faux fit of complaining, settled for an estimate that Forbes convinced itself was conservative -- even though it was often wildly high anyway. The one gap in this mating dance was 1990 to 1995, when Donald didn't appear on the list at all. Forbes was apparently so chastened by the $2.6 billion difference in its estimate of Donald's wealth between 1989 and 1990 that the magazine needed a six-year hiatus before it had the confidence to begin helping him inflate his verbal fortune again.