excellent title, and,
suitably capitalized, would enable us to pay our lions sufficiently.
Private enterprise is powerless under modern conditions. It's as much as I
can afford to pay for a dinner, without running up an expense account for
guests; and unless we get up a salon trust, as it were, the whole affair
must go to the wall."

[Illustration: MADAME RECAMIER HAS A PLAN]

"How would you make it pay?" asked Portia. "I can't see where your
dividends would come from."

"That is simple enough," said Madame Recamier. "We could put up a large
reception-hall with a portion of our capital, and advertise a series of
nights--say one a week throughout the season. These would be Warriors'
Night, Story-tellers' Night, Poets' Night, Chafing-dish Night under the
charge of Brillat-Savarin, and so on. It would be understood that on these
particular evenings the most interesting people in certain lines would be
present, and would mix with outsiders, who should be admitted only on
payment of a certain sum of money. The commonplace inhabitants of this
country could thus meet the truly great; and if I know them well, as I
think I do, they'll pay readily for the privilege. The obscure love to rub
up against the famous here as well as they do on earth."

"You'd run a sort of Social Zoo?" suggested Elizabeth.

"Precisely; and provide entertainment for private residences too. An
advertisement in Boswell's paper, which everybody buys--"

"And which nobody reads," said Portia.

"They read the advertisements," retorted Madame Recamier. "As I was
saying, an advertisement could be placed in Boswell's paper as follows:
'Are you giving a Function? Do you want Talent? Get your Genius at the
Recamier Salon (Limited).' It would be simply magnificent as a business
enterprise. The common herd would be tickled to death if they could get
great people at their homes, even if they had to pay roundly for them."

"It would look well in the society notes, wouldn't it, if Mr. John Boggs
gave a reception, and at the close of the account it said, 'The supper was
furnished by Calizetti, and the genius by the Recamier Salon (Limited)'?"
suggested Elizabeth, scornfully.

"I must admit," replied the French lady, "that you call up an unpleasant
possibility, but I don't really see what else we can do if we want to
preserve the salon idea. Somebody has told these talented people that they
have a commercial value, and they are availing themselves of the demand