alike—the same people, the same flowers, the same things to eat, and the same inane twaddle in the shape of talk. Who cares about them anyway?"
"Well, I like that," she interrupted. "After all the thought I put into those dinners, after all the variety I so carefully secured! My dear boy, you are frightfully ungrateful."
"Oh, you know what I mean. And you know quite as well as I do that it is perfectly true. The dinners were a beastly bore, which proves that they were a loud success. Your work was not done in vain. But now I want something else. We must push along the ball we've been talking of. And the yachting cruise—that can't wait very much longer."
"The ball first," she decreed. "I'll see to the cards at once, and in a day or two I'll have a list ready for your gracious approval. And what have you done?"
"Pettingill has some great ideas for doing over Sherry's. Harrison is in communication with the manager of that Hungarian orchestra you spoke of, and he finds the men quite ready for a little jaunt across the water. We have that military band—I've forgotten the number of its regiment—for the promenade music, and the new Paris sensation, the contralto, is com-
