grape juice with it, or I can't condescend to eat it.
I say--the smoke is getting a bit thick here for you ladies, isn't it?"

We had been late in coming down, and at many tables people were nearing
the end of the dinner. For some time the odour of expensive cigars had
been growing heavier throughout the room; a blue haze hung over the more
distant tables.

"I don't think my lungs mind it so much as my feelings," I answered. "I
shall never be able to make it seem to me just--just----"

"Try to subdue the expression which dominates your countenance at the
present moment," counselled the Skeptic gently, "or you will be quietly
led away from the scene as dangerous to your fellow-men."

After what seemed like many hours we reached the end of the dinner. I
felt that I should be glad to reach the quiet and comparative purity of
air to be found in the room in which our hosts had received us--a
private drawing-room. But this was not to be. We were taken from place
to place about the hotel, to look in on this or that scene of
entertainment, of banqueting, of revelry. Gorgeousness upon gorgeousness
was revealed to us. Althea, now very gay and sparkling in manner, her
carefully dressed hair a little loosened, her mind full of schemes for
our diversion, took the lead, showing off everything with that air of
personal possession I have often observed in the frequenters of
hostelries like the Amazon.

Hepatica, in spite of evident effort to maintain her part, grew a trifle
silent. As I regarded her I was reminded of a white dove in the company
of a pair of peacocks. The Philosopher adjusted his eyeglasses from time
to time as if they did not fit well; he seemed to feel his vision
growing distorted. I became intensely fatigued with it all, and found
myself longing for a quiet corner and a book. As for the Skeptic--but
the Skeptic was incorrigible.

"How much does it cost, do you say," he inquired of the Promoter, "to
buy a postage stamp at the desk here? I want to put one on a letter I
have in my pocket. May I slip it into the post-box myself, or do I have
to call a flunkey, present him with a dollar, and respectfully request
him to insert it in the slit for me?"

The Promoter smiled. "Oh, people make a joke of the Amazon," said he.
"But I notice they're the same ones who breathe deep when they go by
it, hoping to inhale the atmosphere free of charge."

The Skeptic inflated his lungs. "I'm going to do it here, inside," said
he