at it now."

I began to realize that Father Knickerbocker, old as he
was, had forgotten all the earlier times with which I
associated his memory. There was nothing left but the
_cabarets_, and the Gardens, the Palm Rooms, and the
ukuleles of to-day. Behind that his mind refused to
travel.

"Don't you remember," I asked, "the apple orchards and
the quiet groves of trees that used to line Broadway long
ago?"

"Groves!" he said. "I'll show you a grove, a coconut
grove"--here he winked over his wineglass in a senile
fashion--"that has apple-trees beaten from here to
Honolulu." Thus he babbled on.

All through our meal his talk continued: of _cabarets_
and dances, or fox-trots and midnight suppers, of blondes
and brunettes, "peaches" and "dreams," and all the while
his eye roved incessantly among the tables, resting on
the women with a bold stare. At times he would indicate
and point out for me some of what he called the
"representative people" present.

"Notice that man at the second table," he would whisper
across to me. "He's worth all the way to ten millions:
made it in Government contracts; they tried to send him
to the penitentiary last fall but they can't get him--he's