eet.

Looking back from my own stoop, I saw the three kindly old sinners
making salutations at the corner. My bombastic friend and the Judge had
their hats off, waving them, and the Colonel saluted with such rigid
propriety, it seems a pity that he was facing the wrong way.

I laugh, oh, yes, I laugh at the memory, until I think how silvery were
these three wine-muddled old heads, and then I feel "the pity, oh, the
pity of it!"

_CHAPTER XVIII

A BELATED WEDDING_

It was in a city in the far West that this small incident took place--a
city of the mountains still so young that some of its stateliest
business buildings of stone or marble, with plate-glass, fine furniture,
and electric lighting, were neighboured not merely by shanties, but
actually by tents.

But though high up in the mountains, the young city was neither too far
nor too high for vice to reach it; and so it came about that a certain
woman, whose gold-bought smiles had become a trifle too mocking and
satirical to be attractive, had come to the young city and placed
herself at the head of an establishment where, at command, every one
from sunset laughed and was merry, and held out hungry, grasping little
hands for the gold showered upon them--laughed, with weary, pain-filled
eyes--laughed, with stiff, tired lips sometimes--but still laughed till
sunrise--and then, well, who cared what they did _then_?

And this woman had waxed rich, and owned valuable property and much
mining stock, and was generous to those who were down on their luck, and
was quick with her revolver--as the man who tried to hold her up on a
lonely road found out to his sorrow.

Now to this city there came a certain actress, and the papers and the
theatre bills announced a performance of the old French play of
"Camille." The wealthy Madame Elize, as she styled herself, had heard
and read much of both actress and play, and knew that it was almost a
nightly occurrence for men to shed tears over two of the scenes, while
women wept deliciously through the whole play.

She determined that she would go to that performance, though the manager
assured the public, in large letters, that no one of her order could
possibly be admitted. And she declared "that she could sit out that or
any other play without tears. That no amount of play-acting could move
her, unless it was to laughter."

And so the night came, and the best seat in the best box in all that
crowded theatre was occupi