THE VERTICAL CITY

THE SMUDGE

GUILTY

ROULETTE





SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY


By that same architectural gesture of grief which caused Jehan at Agra
to erect the Taj Mahal in memory of a dead wife and a cold hearthstone,
so the Bon Ton hotel, even to the pillars with red-freckled monoliths
and peacock-backed lobby chairs, making the analogy rather absurdly
complete, reared its fourteen stories of "elegantly furnished suites,
all the comforts and none of the discomforts of home."

A mausoleum to the hearth. And as true to form as any that ever mourned
the dynastic bones of an Augustus or a Hadrian.

An Indiana-limestone and Vermont-marble tomb to Hestia.

All ye who enter here, at sixty dollars a week and up, leave behind the
lingo of the fireside chair, parsley bed, servant problem, cretonne shoe
bags, hose nozzle, striped awnings, attic trunks, bird houses, ice-cream