mpete with skating
rinks, where elegant and accomplished instructors complained of their
rowdiness. But, as Jenny said, "What of it? _We're_ enjoying ourselves,
any old way."

The pinnacle of their gay ambition was a Covent Garden Ball. This
entertainment had continually to be postponed for lack of funds; for,
though a Covent Garden Ball has usually a sober, even a chilling effect
upon the company, it has dare-devil pretensions which Maurice and his
retinue would not exploit unless they were assured of a conspicuous
success.

So the Second Empire Masquerade was planned and debated a long time
before it actually happened. That it happened at all was due to the
death of Maurice's great-aunt, who left him one hundred pounds. This
legacy being unexpected, was obviously bound to be spent at once. As the
legatee pointed out to Jenny one dripping afternoon in early January, as
they sat together in the studio:

"It's practically like finding money in the road. I know that one day my
stockbroker uncle will leave me two thousand pounds. He's told me so
often to raise my spirits on wet week-ends at his house. I've planned
what to do with that. Every farthing is booked. But this hundred I
never thought of. I was beginning to despair of ever raising the cash
for Covent Garden, and here it is all of a sudden."

"You're not going to spend a hundred pounds in one evening?" Jenny
exclaimed.

"Not all of it, because you've got to buy yourself some furs and three
hats and those silk stockings with peach-colored clocks--oh, yes, and
I've got to buy you that necklace of fire opals which we saw in Wardour
Street and also that marquise ring, and I've got to buy myself a safety
razor and a box of pastels, and I simply must get Thackeray's _Lectures
on the English Humorists_ for Fuz."

"There won't be much left of your hundred pounds," said Jenny.

"Well, let's draw up an estimate. I'll write down the possibles and then
we'll delete nearly all of them."

Maurice got up from his chair and wandered round the room in search of
note-paper. Not being able to find any, he pinned a large sheet of
drawing-paper to a board and produced a pencil.

"Look at him," laughed Jenny. "Look at the Great Millionaire. Just
because he's come into money, he can't write on anything smaller than a
blanket."

"It's not ostentation," Maurice declared. "It's laziness--a privilege of
the very poor, as you ought to know by this time. I can't find any
note-pap