ay where numerous carriages were
arriving and depositing their occupants. They ascended the steps and
were ushered into a crowded room where a well dressed throng were
jostling about and trying to keep off one another's toes. Near the door
Mrs. McSeeney was undergoing the laborious experience of greeting her
friends, while about the room Mrs. Nobody could be heard cackling loudly
and Mrs. Somebody peeping meekly, while Mr. Smart was smirking and Mr.
Plain was awkwardly striving to interest ugly Miss Croesus. It was a
prattling, garrulous society. The world over it is the same,
differentiated by race and place, perhaps, but still society.

Duncan was taken about and introduced to scores of people whose names he
did not even hear. A smile here and a word there was all he had time
for, but he managed to meet all "the people one should know," and, being
a new man, caused a flutter of expectation among the women. "Who is he?"
"What is he?" "Where is he from?" were the questions asked by all, but
they scarcely received a satisfactory answer before Marion hurried
Duncan into an adjoining room where numerous pretty girls were
dispensing that universal anodyne of modern life, tea. What should we
moderns do without tea? It is the prop of society, and without this
precious Chinese plant we might still be cupping the sack, and beating
our wives between the draughts. In fact a noted moralist has said that
"tea has checked our boisterous revels, raised women to a new position,
refined manners, and softened the character of men." Perhaps! but let a
man with a full cup of tea, and the spoon balanced on the edge of the
saucer, try to rise from a low chair and shake hands; then ask him what
he thinks about the effect of tea on a man's character.

After responding scores of times to the question, "How do you like
Chicago?" with the reply, "I don't know," and after answering quite as
frequently and in the same manner the question, "How long do you expect
to remain here?" Duncan was finally rescued by Marion Sanderson and
taken away.

"You don't often have strangers here, do you?" Duncan gasped when they
were outside. "I seem as much of a curiosity as a white man on the
Congo."

"Not quite so bad as that," Marion laughed, "though I must confess a new
man is an attraction here, especially at a tea, where there are at least
two women to every one of the other sex."

"I suppose the natives are frightened away."

"No, you wretch, they ar