" asked everybody.

* * * * *

As a result of all this it naturally came about that Mr. Yahi-Bahi and
Mr. Ram Spudd were invited to appear at the residence of Mrs.
Rasselyer-Brown; and it was understood that steps would be taken to
form a special society, to be known as the Yahi-Bahi Oriental Society.

Mr. Sikleigh Snoop, the sex-poet, was the leading spirit in the
organization. He had a special fitness for the task: he had actually
resided in India. In fact, he had spent six weeks there on a stop-over
ticket of a round-the-world 635 dollar steamship pilgrimage; and he
knew the whole country from Jehumbapore in Bhootal to Jehumbalabad in
the Carnatic. So he was looked upon as a great authority on India,
China, Mongolia, and all such places, by the ladies of Plutoria Avenue.

Next in importance was Mrs. Buncomhearst, who became later, by a
perfectly natural process, the president of the society. She was
already president of the Daughters of the Revolution, a society
confined exclusively to the descendants of Washington's officers and
others; she was also president of the Sisters of England, an
organization limited exclusively to women born in England and
elsewhere; of the Daughters of Kossuth, made up solely of Hungarians
and friends of Hungary and other nations; and of the Circle of Franz
Joseph, which was composed exclusively of the partisans, and others, of
Austria. In fact, ever since she had lost her third husband, Mrs.
Buncomhearst had thrown herself--that was her phrase--into outside
activities. Her one wish was, on her own statement, to lose herself. So
very naturally Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown looked at once to Mrs. Buncomhearst
to preside over the meetings of the new society.

* * * * *

The large dining-room at the Rasselyer-Browns' had been cleared out as
a sort of auditorium, and in it some fifty or sixty of Mrs.
Rasselyer-Brown's more intimate friends had gathered. The whole meeting
was composed of ladies, except for the presence of one or two men who
represented special cases. There was, of course, little Mr. Spillikins,
with his vacuous face and football hair, who was there, as everybody
knew, on account of Dulphemia; and there was old Judge Longerstill, who
sat leaning on a gold-headed stick with his head sideways, trying to
hear some fraction of what was being said. He came to the gathering in
the hope that it would prove a likely place for seconding a vote of
th