lroad fares and
hotel bills, and though fortune has sometimes favored one or the other
for a time, I believe that, had we kept accounts, we should find
ourselves to-day practically even.

Our system of matching has some correlated customs. Now and then, for
instance, when one of us is unlucky and has been "stuck" for a series of
meals, the other, in partial reparation, will declare a "party."
Birthdays and holidays also call for parties, and sometimes there will
be a party for no particular reason other than that we feel like having
one.

Two of our parties on this journey have been given in the basement cafe
of the Shoreham Hotel in Washington. Both were supper parties. The first
I gave in honor of my companion, for the reason that we both like the
Shoreham cafe, and that a party seemed to be about due. That party
brought on the other, which occurred a few nights later and was given by
us jointly in honor of a very beautiful and talented young actress. And
this one, we agree, was, in a way, the most amusing of all the parties
we have had together.

It was early in the morning, when we were leaving the cafe after the
first party, that we encountered the lady who caused the second one. I
had never met her, but I was aware that my companion knew her, for he
talked about her in his sleep. She was having supper with a gentleman at
a table near the door, and had you seen her it would be unnecessary for
me to tell you that my companion stopped to speak to her, and that I
hung around until he introduced me.

After we had stood beside her, for a time, talking and gazing down into
her beautiful world-wise eyes, the gentleman with whom she was supping
took pity upon us, and upon the waiters, whose passageway we blocked,
and invited us to sit down.

It was doubly delightful to meet her there in Washington, for besides
being beautiful and celebrated, she had just come from New York and was
able to give us news of mutual friends, bringing us up to date on suits
for separation, alimony, and alienation of affections, on divorces and
remarriages, and all the little items one loses track of when one has
been away for a fortnight.

"I shall be playing in Washington all this week," she said as we were
about to leave. "I hope that we may see each other again."

Whom did she mean by "we"? True, she looked at my companion as she
spoke, but he was seated at one side of her and I at the other, and even
with such eyes as hers, she coul