is writing a small ready-reference book on his side of the
great problem, "Is Marriage a Failure?"

With this I shake him by the hand and in a moment the big iron
storm-door clangs behind me, the big lock clicks in its hoarse, black
throat and I welcome even the air of Ludlow street so long as the blue
sky is above it.

THE ENCHANTED HAT

_The Adventure of My Lady's Letter_

BY HAROLD MACGRATH

It was half-after six when I entered Martin's from the Broadway side. I
chose a table by the north wall and sat down on the cushioned seat. I
ordered dinner, and the ample proportions of it completely hoodwinked
the waiter as to the condition of my cardiac affliction: being, as I
was, desperately and hopelessly and miserably in love. Old owls say that
a man can not eat when he is in love. He can if he is mad at the way the
object of his affections has treated him; and I was mad. To be sure, I
can not recall what my order was, but the amount of the waiter's check
is still vivid to my recollection.

I glanced about. The cafe was crowded, as it usually is at this hour.
Here and there I caught glimpses of celebrities and familiar faces:
journalists, musicians, authors, artists and actors. This is the time
they drop in to be pointed out to strangers from out of town. It's a
capital advertisement. To-night, however, none of these interested me in
the slightest degree; rather, their animated countenances angered me.
How _could_ they laugh and look happy!

At my left sat a young man about my own age. He was also in evening
dress. At my right a benevolent old gentleman, whose eye-glasses
balanced neatly upon the end of his nose, was deeply interested in _The
Law Journal_ and a pint pf mineral water. A little beyond my table was
an exiled Frenchman, and the irritating odor of absinthe drifted at
times across my nostrils.

With my coffee I ordered a glass of Dantzic, and watched the flakes of
beaten gold waver and settle; and presently I devoted myself entirely to
my own particularly miserable thoughts.... To be in love and in debt! To
be with the gods one moment and hunted by a bill-collector the next! To
have the girl you love snub and dismiss you for no more lucid reason
than that you did not attend the dance at the Country Club when you
promised you would! It did not matter that you had a case on that night
from which depended a large slice of your bread and butter; no, that did
not matter. Neither did the fact that y