you're properly presented to the cook first, or she'll appeal to the
floor committee and have you thrown out."

"The interesting thing about that ball," said Travers, as he and Van
Bibber walked home that night, "is the fact that those hotel people are
getting a galaxy of stars to amuse them for nothing who wouldn't exhibit
themselves at a Fifth Avenue dance for all the money in Wall Street. And
the joke of it is going to be that the servants will vastly prefer the
banjo solo by hall-boy Number Eight."

Lyric Hall lies just this side of the Forty-second Street station along
the line of the Sixth Avenue Elevated road, and you can look into its
windows from the passing train. It was after one o'clock when the
invited guests and their friends pushed open the storm-doors and were
recognized by the anxious committee-men who were taking tickets at the
top of the stairs. The committee-men fled in different directions,
shouting for Mr. Paul, and Mr. Paul arrived beaming with delight and
moisture, and presented a huge bouquet to Mrs. West, and welcomed her
friends with hospitable warmth.

Mrs. West and Miss Chamberlain took off their hats and the men gave up
their coats, not without misgivings, to a sleepy young man who said
pleasantly, as he dragged them into the coat-room window, "that they
would be playing in great luck if they ever saw them again."

"I don't need to give you no checks," he explained: "just ask for the
coats with real fur on 'em. Nobody else has any."

There was a balcony overhanging the floor, and the invited guests were
escorted to it, and given seats where they could look down upon the