per to drink but one glass, as it was necessary that he should keep
a perfectly clear head. Weil remarked in an undertone that he had only
ordered the wine as an excuse for remaining a few minutes.

"I call this 'the slaughter house,'" he added, in a voice still lower.
"Girls are brought here to be murdered. Not to have their throats cut,"
he explained, "but to be killed just as surely, if more slowly. I have
seen them come here for the first time, with good health shining out of
their rosy cheeks, delighted at the unwonted excitement and the amount
of attention the frequenters of the place bestowed. I have watched them
growing steadily paler, having recourse to rouge, the eyes getting
dimmer, the voice growing harsher, the temper becoming more variable.
And then--other fresh faces came in their stead. There are killed, on an
average, twenty girls a year here, I should say; killed to satisfy the
appetites of men, as beeves are killed in Chicago, but not so
mercifully."

The novelist looked into the faces that were nearest to him and thought
he could discern the various grades of which his friend spoke--the new,
the older, the ones whose turn to give way to others would soon come.
All of them were drinking. Most had on the stage dresses they had just
worn or were about to wear in the performance. Some had finished their
parts and were enveloped in street clothes, ready to take their
departure with the first male who asked them. And they were drinking,
drinking, either in little sips or in feverish gulps, as they would at a
later day, when the five-dollar wine would be replaced by five cent beer
or perhaps the drainings of a keg on the sidewalk.

Mr. Walker Boggs soon came into the wine-room and joined the pair at Mr.
Weil's table. He called for a whiskey straight, pushing the champagne
aside with an impatient movement.

"I won't punish my stomach with such stuff, even if it _has_ gone back
on me," he exclaimed. "That will knock out any man who drinks it between
meals."

Mr. Weil assented to this proposition, and to show his full belief in it
filled his own glass again and tossed its contents down his throat.

"What brings you here?" he asked, quizzically.

"Those creatures," replied Boggs, with a motion of his hand toward the
members of the ballet. "They're all that's left me now. _They_ don't
mind the size of my waist. My hold on _them_ is as strong as ever. But
_you_ ought not to be here," he broke in, turning t