t Homeburg--and I'll tell you,
by the time they have come rustling in about half way through the first
act, H. DeLancey Payley and W. Sam Singer in clawhammers with an acre
apiece of white shirt and holding about four bushels of pink fluff over
their arms, and the boys have consulted anxiously with the usher, the
two girls, beautiful visions of Arctic perfection, standing in well-bred
suspense and holding their gowns in the 1915 manner, and all four have
hurried down to the best seats and have unharnessed and stowed away
their upholsterings, and DeLancey has folded up his explosive hat and
Sam has leaned back in a lordly way and beckoned to the usher for
another program--by the time all this has transpired, the actors have
forgotten their lines, and we have gotten our money's worth out of the
evening's entertainment.

The hardships those people inflict on themselves in the sacred cause of
correctness are agonizing. It takes something more than nerve to wear a
silk hat and Prince Albert down to the Homeburg post-office on Sundays
to get the mail--especially with Ad Summers always on hand to spill a
large red laugh into his sleeve and say to some friend in a tremendous
stage whisper that the darn dude's legs must be bowed or he wouldn't
want to hide 'em that way. And as for the carriage proposition, I'm
certain that no martyrs have endured more. DeLancey persuaded Hi Nott to
buy a real city carriage, and the four have used it faithfully; only the
Payleys and Singers live in different edges of town, and by the time Hi
has hauled Sam and his sister across town to the Payleys, through
Homeburg's April streets, which average a little more depth than width,
and has hauled the four down to the theater, there are usually about
three breakdowns. I've seen the four of them plodding haughtily home
from "Wedded but No Wife", the girls holding their imported dresses out
of the mud, and the boys sounding for bottom on the crossings with their
canes, while Hi drove the carriage solemnly down the road beside them.
The mud was too deep for them to get home in the carriage, but everybody
could see it was there and that they had paid for it and had done their
darndest, anyway. After all, that's no worse than the way you New
Yorkers carry your gloves in your hand in warm weather. You don't need
them, but you want the world to know you've got 'em and wouldn't be
found dead without 'em.

When our Smart Set gives a party, we all try to live u