pany, rented an elevator-service, mauve-upholstered establishment on
middle Broadway, secured the managerial services of a slender young man
fresh from the Louis Quinze rooms of Madam Roth--Modes, Fifth Avenue,
tripled her prices, and emerged from the brown cocoon of Twenty-third
Street, Madam Moores, Modiste.

Two years later, three perfect-thirty-six sibyls promenaded the mauve
display rooms, tempting those who waddle with sleeveless frocks that
might have been designed for the Venus of Milo warmed to life.

The presiding young man, slim and full of the small ways that
ingratiate, and with a pomaded glory of tow hair rippling back in a
double wave that women's fingers itched to caress and men's hands itched
to thresh, pushed forward the mauve velvet chairs with a waiter's
servility, but none of his humility; officiated over the crowded pages
of the crowded appointment-book, jotted down measurements with an
imperturbability that grew for every inch the tape-line measured over
and above.

Last, Madam Moores, her small figure full of nerves; two spots of red
high on her cheeks; her erstwhile graying hairs, a bit premature and
but a sprinkling of them, turned to the inward of a new and elaborate
coiffure; and meeting this high tide with a smile, newly enhanced by
bridge-work and properly restrained to that dimension of insolence
demanded by the rich of those who serve them well.

In the springtime Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue turn lightly to thoughts
of Narragansett Pier and Bronx Park. Fifth Avenue sheds its furs and
Sixth Avenue its woolen underwear. At the dusk of one such day, when the
taste of summer was like poppy leaves crushed between the teeth, and
open streetcars and open shirtwaists blossomed forth even as the
distant larkspur in the distant field, Madam Moores beheld the
electric-protection door swing behind the last customer and relaxed
frankly against a table piled high with fabrics of a dozen sheens.

"Whew! Thank heavens, she's gone!"

To a symphony of six-o'clock whistles the rumble of machines from the
workrooms suddenly ceased.

"Turn out the shower lights, Phonzie, and see that Van Nord's black lace
goes out in time for opera to-night. When she telephoned at noon I told
her it was on the way."

Mr. Alphonse Michelson hurtled a mauve-colored footstool and hastened
rearward toward the swinging-door that led to the emptying workrooms.
The tallest of the perfect-thirty-sixes, stepping out of her