as so much a sacrilege that he went out and
"painted the town," winding up in a fight with a cigar-store Indian.
He left such a train of fireworks in his wake that Wallingford heard
of it for weeks afterward.

To J. Rufus the affair was a good joke, but to the other gentlemen of
the company, Corbin, Paley and Doctor Lazzier and the others who had
social reputations to maintain as well as business interests to guard,
the affair was tragic, not merely because one of their number had
become intoxicated, but that it should be this particular one, and
that he should make himself so conspicuous! The doctor repeated his
escapade within a week. This time he took a notion to "circulate" in a
cab, and as he got more mellow, insisted upon sitting up with the
driver, where he whooped sonorously every time they turned a corner.
This time he finished in the hands of the police, and Wallingford was
called upon at three o'clock in the morning to bail him out. Friends
of Corbin and Paley and the other exclusives whom Wallingford had
selected as his stock-holders began to drop in on them with pleasant
little remarks about their business associate. The doctor had been
bragging widely about his connection with them!

His crowning effort came when he continued his celebration of one
night through the next day, and drove around to make a few party
calls. He appeared like a specter of disgrace in Corbin's private
office with:

"Hello, old pal, come out and have a drink!" and gave Corbin a hearty
slap on the back.

Corbin gave a helpless glance across at the three prim young ladies on
the other side of his open screen. Back of him a solemn-visaged old
bookkeeper, who was both a deacon and Sunday-school superintendent,
looked on in shocked amazement.

"Couldn't begin to think of it, Doctor," protested Corbin nervously,
pulling at his lavender cravat, while the perspiration broke out upon
his bald spot. "I must attend to business, you know."

"Never mind the business!" insisted the doctor. "Wait till our
Sciatacata factory is shipping in car-loads, partner, and you can
afford to give this junk-shop away."

Paley, happening in to speak to Corbin, created a diversion welcome to
Corbin but unwelcome to himself, for the doctor immediately pounced
upon Paley and insisted upon taking him out to get a drink, and the
only way that narrow-framed young man could get rid of him was to
go along. He rode around in the cab with him for a while, and t