ion of
monopolies exhaled an odor of Sing-Sing, the which had been so
attractive to the nostrils of an English peer that he had taken his
daughter as wife. There was Madden, who controlled an entire state.
There was Bucholz, who declared himself Above the Law, and who had
erupted in New York three decades before with the seven sins for sole
capital. There was Bleecker Bleecker, who each year gave away a pope's
ransom to charity and pursued his debtors to the grave. There was
Dunwoodie, whose coat smelled of benzine and whose signature was potent
as a king's. There was Forbush, who lunched furtively on an apple and
had given a private establishment to each one of his twelve children.
There was Gwathmeys, who had twice ruined himself for his enemies and
made a fortune from his friends. There was Attersol, who could have
bought the White House and whose sole pleasures were window-gardening
and the accord of violins.

On the grand-tier was Mrs. Besalul, on whom society had shut its door
because she had omitted to close her own. In an adjoining box was Mrs.
Smithwick, the bride of a month, fairer than that queen whose face was
worth the world to kiss, and who the previous winter had written a novel
of such impropriety that when it was published her mother forbade her to
read it. There was Miss Pickett, a debutante, who possessed the
disquieting ugliness of a monkey and who had announced that there was
nothing so immoral as ennui. There was Mrs. Bouvery, who claimed
connection with every one whose name began with Van. Mrs. Hackensack,
one of the few surviving Knickerbockers. The Coenties twins, known as
Dry and Extra Mumm. And there were others less interesting. Mrs.
Ponder, for instance, famous for her musicales, which no one could be
bribed to attend. Mrs. Skolfield, who was so icy in her manner that a
poet who had once ventured her way, had caught a cold in his head which
lasted a week. Mrs. Nevers, mailed in diamonds; Mrs. Goodloe, mailed in
pearls; and a senator's wife in a bonnet.

The only empty box in the house was owned by Mr. Incoul, then abroad on
his honeymoon.

And in and out through these boxes sauntered a contingent of men,
well-groomed, white of glove, and flowered as to their button-holes.
Among them was Harry Tandem, who had inaugurated silver studs. Brewster,
who had invented a new figure for the cotillion, and with him Harrison
Felton, the maestro of that decadent dance. There was George Rerick, who
st