tague did not comprehend. Many such matters, however, were explained
to him by an elderly gentleman who sat on his right, and who seemed to
stay sober, no matter how much he drank. Incidentally he gravely
advised Montague to meet one of the young host's mistresses, who was a
"stunning" girl, and was in the market.

Toward morning the festivities changed to a series of wrestling-bouts;
the young men stripped off their clothing and tore the table to pieces,
and piled it out of the way in a corner, smashing most of the crockery
in the process. Between the matches, champagne would be opened by
knocking off the heads of the bottles; and this went on until four
o'clock in the morning, when many of the guests were lying in heaps
upon the floor.

Montague rode home in a cab with the elderly gentleman who had sat next
to him; and on the way he asked if such affairs as this were common.
And his companion, who was a "steel man" from the West, replied by
telling him of some which he had witnessed at home. At Siegfried
Harvey's theatre-party Montague had seen a popular actress in a musical
comedy, which was then the most successful play running in New York.
The house was sold out weeks ahead, and after the matinee you might
observe the street in front of the stage-entrance blocked by people
waiting to see the woman come out. She was lithe and supple, like a
panther, and wore close-fitting gowns to reveal her form. It seemed
that her play must have been built with one purpose in mind, to see how
much lewdness could be put upon a stage without interference by the
police.--And now his companion told him how this woman had been invited
to sing at a banquet given by the magnates of a mighty Trust, and had
gone after midnight to the most exclusive club in the town, and sung
her popular ditty, "Won't you come and play with me?" The merry
magnates had taken the invitation literally--with the result that the
actress had escaped from the room with half her clothing torn off her.
And a little while later an official of this trust had wished to get
rid of his wife and marry a chorus-girl; and when public clamour had
forced the directors to ask him to resign, he had replied by
threatening to tell about this banquet!

The next day--or rather, to be precise, that same morning--Montague and
Alice attended the gorgeous wedding. It was declared by the newspapers
to be the most "important" social event of the week; and it took half a
dozen policeme