is," he said to the clerk. "I think I'll take a room here."

"Very well, sir. Where shall I send for your luggage?"

"I shall bring it myself," replied Mellin coldly, "in my cab."

He did not think it necessary to reveal the fact that he was staying at
one of the cheaper pensions; and it may be mentioned that this reticence
(as well as the somewhat chilling, yet careless, manner of a gentleman
of the "great world" which he assumed when he returned with his trunk
and bag) very substantially increased the rate put upon the room he
selected at the Magnifique. However, it was with great satisfaction
that he found himself installed in the hotel, and he was too recklessly
exhilarated, by doing what he called the "right thing," to waste any
time wondering what the "right thing" would do to the diminishing pad of
express checks he carried in the inside pocket of his waistcoat.

"Better live a fortnight like a gentleman," he said, as he tossed his
shoes into a buhl cabinet, "than vegetate like a tourist for a year."

He had made his entrance into the "great world" and he meant to hold his
place in it as one "to the manor born." Its people should not find
him lacking: he would wear their manner and speak their language--no
gaucherie should betray him, no homely phrase escape his lips.

This was the chance he had always hoped for, and when he fell asleep
in his gorgeous, canopied bed, his soul was uplifted with happy
expectations.