"Just seven hundred dollars all told, and the like of that outfit
couldn't be bought any other place of style in New York for less than
a thousand, Miss," remarked to me the elderly clerk as he closed and
made fast with keys the two bags. "Shall I send 'em special?"

"I'll thank you that you call a taxi for me, Monsieur," I answered,
and as he had mentioned that Ritz-Carlton Hotel, in conversation
earlier, that very wicked daredevil that resides within me awoke at
attention with the large ears of great mischief. I felt in my pocket
that there was still much gold, and the man from whom I had purchased
the ticket to the State of Harpeth had assured me that the train did
not depart until the hour of six in the evening.

"To the Hotel of the Ritz-Carlton," I commanded the man of the taxi as
he made fast the door.

It then transpired that one hour from the time that the young
Mademoiselle Grez, who had registered at that large hotel with all of
her luggage from the steamer while by lies her father was represented
as still engaged with the customs, entered her room, there emerged
young Mr. Robert Carruthers, who, after paying his bill in his room
had a hall boy send his bags on ahead of him to the Pennsylvania
Station while he sauntered into the tea room. I have never again met
with the wonderful dresses I left in that hotel room. I hope the poor
and beautiful domestic, who assisted me in cutting my hair into a
football shortness after the mode of a very beautiful woman dancer
which she said girls of much foolishness in America have affected, was
rewarded with them.