the punch. Believe me, the Astors ain't got anything on us now."

Mrs. Bagstock don't seem to be listenin'. She's just gazin' around
smilin' vague.

"Music, wasn't there?" she goes on. "I had really forgotten having
ordered an orchestra. And such lovely roses! Let me take one more
look at the dear old drawing-room. Yes, it was a success, I'm sure.
Now you may ring for my maid. I--I think I will retire."

As they brushed past me on their way to the stairs I took a chance on
whisperin' to Tessie.

"Hadn't you better ring up the doc?" I suggests.

"Maybe I had," says she.

Perhaps she did, too. I expect it didn't matter much. Only I was
peeved at that boob society editor, after all the trouble I took to get
the story shaped up by one of my newspaper friends and handed in early,
to have it held over for the Sunday edition. That's how it happens the
paper I takes in to Mr. Ellins Monday mornin' has these two items on
the same page--I'd marked 'em both. One was a flossy account of Mrs.
Theodore Bayly Bagstock's third Wednesday; the other was six lines in
the obituary column. Old Hickory reads 'em, and then sits for a
minute, gazin' over the top of his desk at nothing at all.

"Poor Natalie!" says be, after a while. "So that was her last."

"Nobody ever finished any happier, though," says I.