was a new way to
dress up. None of them thought it was funny for the seemly old prophets
to disport themselves at a ball, not until the newspaper wits began
to point it out. But it never pays for the metropolitan dailies to
be their funniest at the expense of the class which gives
fifty-thousand-dollar balls, so the affair got under way with much
advertising, and few jibes.

Jerry, with his first check safely deposited in the bank, went merrily
to work at his designs. He spent his days in the library, studying
costumes, looking over old pictures, working at effects. He decided upon
the throne room of King Herod as the big general background of the show.
He planned a wide staircase at the back, where, on a platform like a
landing, the tableaux should appear, after which the actors should
descend to bend the knee to the king and queen.

The plans began to grow, and, artist-like, Jerry hurled himself into his
work with abandon. He laboured early and late, until he was tired out,
before the real task of rehearsing, readjusting human equations, and
such problems had begun.

"Jerry, you goose, you act as if you had been engaged by the Crown
Prince to stage the Coronation. This is nothing but ready money to you,
why do you wear yourself out on it?" protested Bobs.

"I want it to be the biggest thing of the kind that New York ever had.
I'm interested in it. When it's over I will go off somewhere and rest.
Don't you worry."

"Mrs. Abercrombie Brendon will take you for a cruise on her yacht,
maybe," she said bitterly.

"Well, why not? I don't hate her yacht. What's the trouble, Bobsie? Are
you jealous of these ladies of the rich and great?"

She blazed out at him.

"Yes, I am. What right have they to come down here, take you away from
your work, pick your brains, wear you out, and then drop you when
they've taken what they want? I hate them all!"

"Steady, old girl," said Jerry, putting a hand on each of her shoulders,
and making her look at him. "For a penny, I'd shake you, Bobs! What do
you think I am, a mechanical doll? Don't I have anything to say about
what they do to me?"

"You think you do, but you don't."

"Don't you worry about me," he said shortly, and she knew he was
annoyed. He went back to work on a costume drawing, and Bobs went out
without another word.

"Damn," said Jerry softly. He worked rapidly for an hour. Then a
movement in his bedroom startled him.

"Who's that?" he called.

Jane Judd ca