The Metropolis

There was poor Clarrie Mason: Clarrie, sitting in at bridge, with an expression of feverish eagerness upon his pale face. Clarrie always lost, and it positively broke his heart, though he had ten millions laid by on ice. Clarrie went about all day, bemoaning his brother, who had been kidnapped. Had Montague not heard about it ? Well, the newspapers called it a marriage, but it was really a kidnapping. Poor Larry Mason was good-natured and weak in the knees, and he had been carried off by a terrible creature, three times as big as himself, and with a temper like — oh, there were no words for it! She had been an actress; and now she had carried Larry away in her talons, and was building a big castle to keep him in — for he had ten millions too, alas!

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And then there was Bertie Stuyvesant, beautiful and winning — the boy who had sat opposite Montague at dinner. Bertie's father had been a coal man, and nobody knew how many mil-Uons he had left. Bertie was gay; last week he had invited them to a brook-trout breakfast — in November — and that had been a lark! Somebody had told him that trout never really tasted good unless you caught them yourself, and Bertie had suddenly resolved to catch them for that breakfast. "They have a big preserve up in the Adirondacks," said Betty; " and Bertie ordered his private train, and he and Chappie de Peyster and some others started that night; they drove I don't know how many miles the next day, and caught a pile of trout — and we had them for breakfast the next morning! The best joke of all is that Chappie vows they were so full they couldn't fish, and that the trout were caught with nets ! Poor Bertie — somebody'U have to separate him from that decanter now !"

From the hall there came loud laughter, with sounds of scuffling, and cries, "Let me have it!" — "That's Baby de Mille," said Miss Wyman. " She's always wanting to rough-house it. Robbie was mad the last time she was down here; she got to throwing sofa-cushions, and upset a vase.

"Isn't that supposed to be good form.'' asked Montague.

"Not at Robbie's," said she. "Have you had a chance to talk with Robbie yet.? You'll like him—he's serious, like you."

"What's he serious about.?"

"About spending his money," said Betty.

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"That's the only thing he has to be serious about."

" Has he got so very much ? "

"Thirty or forty milHons," she replied; "but then, you see, a lot of it's in the inner companies of his railroad system, and it pays him fabulously. And his wife has money, too — she was a Miss Mason, you know, her father's one of the steel crowd. We've a saying that there are millionaires, and then multimillionaires, and then Pittsburg millionaires. Anyhow, the two of them spend all their income in entertaining-It's Robbie's fad to play the perfect host — he likes to have lots of people round him. He does put up good times — only he's so very important about it, and he has so many ideas of what is proper! I guess most of his set would rather go to Mrs. Jack Warden's any day; I'd be there to-night, if it hadn't been for Ollie."

"Who's Mrs. Jack Warden.?" asked Montague.

' Haven't you ever heard of her ? " said Betty. "She used to be Mrs. van Ambridge, and then she got a divorce and married Warden, the big lumber man. She used to give 'boy and girl' parties, in the English fashion; and when we went there we'd do as we please — play tag all over the house, and have pillow-fights, and ransack the closets and get up masquerades ! Mrs-Warden's as good-natured as an old cow. You'll meet her sometime — only don't you let her fool you with those soft eyes of hers. You'll find she doesn't mean it; it's just that she likes to have handsome men hanging round her."

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At one o'clock a few of Robbie's guests went to bed, Montague among them. He left two tables of bridge fiends sitting immobile, the women with flushed faces and feverish hands, and the men with cigarettes dangling from their lips. There were trays and decanters beside each card-table; and in the hall he passed three youths staggering about in each other's arms and feebly singing snatches of "coon songs." OUie and Betty had strolled away together to parts unknown.

Montague had entered his name in the order-book to be called at nine o'clock. The man who awakened him brought him coffee and cream upon a silver tray, and asked him if he would have anything stronger. He was privileged to have his breakfast in his room, if he wished; but he went downstairs, trying his best to feel natural in his elaborate hunting costume. No one else had appeared yet, but he found the traces of last night cleared away, and breakfast ready — served in English fashion, with urns of tea and coflfee upon the buffet. The grave butler and his satellites were in attendance, ready to take his order for anything else under the sun that he fancied.