birds of the legend that he sought the Balmoral.

He encountered there no difficulty in slaking his thirst; and when, in
one draught, which brought to his tonsils a suggestion of art, science,
and Wagner combined, he swallowed a brandy-and-soda, he felt better, and
looked about to see who might be present. The room which he had entered
was on what is called the parlor floor. It was long, high-ceiled,
comfortably furnished, and somewhat dim. At the furthermost end three
men were seated, two of whom he recognized, the one as Sumpter Leigh,
the other as Colonel Barker; but the third he did not remember to have
seen before. Some Westerner, he thought; for Jones prided himself on
knowing every one worth knowing in New York, and, it may be added, in
several other cities as well.

He took out his card-case and thumbed the roll of bills reflectively.
If he went upstairs, he told himself, he might double the amount in two
minutes. But then, again, he might lose it. Yet, if he did, might not
five hundred be as easily borrowed as two hundred and fifty?

"It's brutal to be so hard up," he mused. "Literature doesn't pay. I
might better set up as publisher, open a drug-shop, turn grocer, do
anything, in fact, which is brainless and remunerative, than attempt to
earn a living by the sweat of my pen. There's that _Interstate
Magazine_: the editor sent me a note by a messenger this morning, asking
for a story, adding that the messenger would wait _while I wrote it_.
Evidently he thinks me three parts stenographer and the rest
kaleidoscope. What is a good synonym for an editor, anyway?"

And as Jones asked himself this question he glared fiercely in a mirror
that extended from cornice to floor. Then, mollified, possibly, by his
own appearance, for he was a handsome man, tall, fair, and clear of
skin, he threw himself on a sofa, and fell to thinking about the
incidents of the ball.

For some time past he had been as discreetly attentive as circumstances
permitted to a young girl, the only child of a potent financier, and on
that particular evening he had sat out the cotillon with her at an
assembly. She was very pretty and, unusual as it may seem in a
_debutante_, rather coy. But when, a half-hour before, he had wished her
sweet dreams in that seductive manner for which he was famous, she had
allowed the tips of her fingers to rest in his own just one fleeting
second longer than was necessary, and, what is more to the point, had
lo