Avenue longer than usual, and entered late. The restaurant was crowded.
He stood at the door, hesitating, knowing that he would not be permitted
to seat himself at a table already occupied by even one person. Suddenly
a small common-looking little man came forward and touched his arm.

"Won't you share my table?" he said, effusively. "My name's Slocum, and
I've seen you here often. You mustn't go away. Come in."

Andrew gratefully accepted, and followed Mr. Slocum over to the little
table on the other side of the room.

"I say," said Slocum, after Webb had ordered his dinner, "I've hit on a
plan. It's been in my head for some time. How often do you come here?"

"Once a month."

"That's my game exactly. I'm a clerk on a small salary; but I must have
one good dinner a month, if I don't have my hair cut. Now, suppose we
dine together. One portion's enough for two, and the same dinner'll only
cost each of us half what it does now. See?"

Andrew did not take kindly to Mr. Slocum: the vulgar young man was so
different from the magnificent creatures about him. But the offer was
not to be ignored, and he closed with it. For the following three years,
until he was twenty-eight, he dined regularly at Delmonico's, and in
that rarefied atmosphere his head gently swam. He forgot the flat in
Harlem,--forgot that he was Andrew, not Schuyler Churchill Webb.


III