ood--and I'm a selfish beast. Things are perverse
and people are desperately obstinate sometimes. And here I am taking it
out on you. You are not perverse. You are not obstinate. You are a
ripper, Mrs. Dan, and you are going to help me out in more ways than
one."

"Well, to pay for all these gallantries, Monty, I ought to do much. I'm
your friend through thick and thin. You have only to command me."

"It was precisely to get your help that I came in. I'm tired of those
confounded dinners. You know yourself that they are all alike--the same
people, the same flowers, the same things to eat, and the same inane
twaddle in the shape of talk. Who cares about them anyway?"

"Well, I like that," she interrupted. "After all the thought I put into
those dinners, after all the variety I so carefully secured! My dear
boy, you are frightfully ungrateful."

"Oh, you know what I mean. And you know quite as well as I do that it
is perfectly true. The dinners were a beastly bore, which proves that
they were a loud success. Your work was not done in vain. But now I
want something else. We must push along the ball we've been talking of.
And the yachting cruise--that can't wait very much longer."

"The ball first," she decreed. "I'll see to the cards at once, and in a
day or two I'll have a list ready for your gracious approval. And what
have you done?"

"Pettingill has some great ideas for doing over Sherry's. Harrison is
in communication with the manager of that Hungarian orchestra you spoke
of, and he finds the men quite ready for a little jaunt across the
water. We have that military band--I've forgotten the number of its
regiment--for the promenade music, and the new Paris sensation, the
contralto, is coming over with her primo tenore for some special
numbers."

"You were certainly cut out for an executive, Monty," said Mrs. Dan.
"But with the music and the decorations arranged, you've only begun.
The favors are the real thing, and if you say the word, we'll surprise
them a little. Don't worry about it, Monty. It's a go already. We'll
pull it off together."

"You are a thoroughbred, Mrs. Dan," he exclaimed. "You do help a fellow
at a pinch."

"That's all right, Monty," she answered; "give me until after Christmas
and I'll have the finest favors ever seen. Other people may have their
paper hats and pink ribbons, but you can show them how the thing ought
to be done."

Her reference to Christmas haunted Brewster, as he drove