he actor estimated that it had suffered as few actual
changes since the departure of its solitary follower of Thespis as
had a stage upon which "four years is supposed to have elapsed." He
absorbed Cranberry Corners and returned to the city of chameleon
changes.

It was in the rathskeller that Highsmith made the hit of his
histrionic career. There is no need to name the place; there is but
one rathskeller where you could hope to find Miss Posie Carrington
after a performance of "The King's Bath-Robe."

There was a jolly small party at one of the tables that drew many
eyes. Miss Carrington, petite, marvellous, bubbling, electric,
fame-drunken, shall be named first. Herr Goldstein follows, sonorous,
curly-haired, heavy, a trifle anxious, as some bear that had caught,
somehow, a butterfly in his claws. Next, a man condemned to a
newspaper, sad, courted, armed, analyzing for press agent's dross
every sentence that was poured over him, eating his a la Newburg in
the silence of greatness. To conclude, a youth with parted hair, a
name that is ochre to red journals and gold on the back of a supper
check. These sat at a table while the musicians played, while waiters
moved in the mazy performance of their duties with their backs toward
all who desired their service, and all was bizarre and merry because
it was nine feet below the level of the sidewalk.

At 11.45 a being entered the rathskeller. The first violin
perceptibly flatted a C that should have been natural; the
clarionet blew a bubble instead of a grace note; Miss Carrington
giggled and the youth with parted hair swallowed an olive seed.

Exquisitely and irreproachably rural was the new entry. A lank,
disconcerted, hesitating young man it was, flaxen-haired, gaping of
mouth, awkward, stricken to misery by the lights and company. His
clothing was butternut, with bright blue tie, showing four inches of
bony wrist and white-socked ankle. He upset a chair, sat in another
one, curled a foot around a table leg and cringed at the approach of
a waiter.

"You may fetch me a glass of lager beer," he said, in response to the
discreet questioning of the servitor.

The eyes of the rathskeller were upon him. He was as fresh as a
collard and as ingenuous as a hay rake. He let his eye rove about
the place as one who regards, big-eyed, hogs in the potato patch.
His gaze rested at length upon Miss Carrington. He rose and went
to her table with a lateral, shining smile and a blush