so amusing, Mr. Dane! One never really knows whether you're in
earnest or not. How many tickets did you say you would take?"

"One and a half," Sally advised, while Bobby stared at Mrs. Lloyd
Avalons in speechless disgust. "He will go, and take me with him; but
newspaper men are always admitted at half-rates."

"And you really think Mr. Thayer will sing for us?" Mrs. Lloyd Avalons
went on, turning back to Beatrix. "It will be an advantage to him, in a
way, to have sung under the auspices of our committee."

This time, even Beatrix felt herself antagonized. Thayer belonged to her
own class, and her class was scarcely of the type to need the official
social sanction of Mrs. Lloyd Avalons.

"I have no idea at all in regard to the matter," she answered a little
coldly. "Mr. Thayer appears to me to be able to hold his own, without
the backing of any committee. It simply depends upon his personal
generosity."

"But it is such a worthy object. And don't you think we could get that
little Arlt to fill in with?"

"From, by, in, or with charity, and to or for a charity?" Bobby asked
savagely.

"Oh, of course, we couldn't pay him." There was a falling inflection of
the last word.

"Then I should advise him to decline charity altogether," Bobby
retorted.

"It would be an advantage to him to play on such a programme," Mrs.
Lloyd Avalons asserted, as she set down her cup.

"It would also be an advantage to him to get a little money, now and
then."

Mrs. Lloyd Avalons raised her brows. They were daintily-marked brows,
and the expression suited her pretty, empty little face.

"I think it is something for a man of no reputation at all to have a
chance to be heard in such a connection," she replied a little tartly.

"Ye-es." Bobby rose with provoking deliberation. "And it is also
possible, Mrs. Avalons, that when we are thankful even to be charted in
Woodlawn, Mr. Arlt's name may be a good deal better known than it is
now. Sally, we are due at the Stuyvesants', and I think we must tear
ourselves away."

Out in the hall, he addressed himself to Sally.

"For social pulleys, give me three: music, cheek, and charity, but the
greatest of these is ch--"

"Charity," amended Sally promptly.

Bobby gloomily pulled himself into his overcoat.

"Sally, I abhor that woman," he said.

CHAPTER EIGHT

"If you once begin, there'll be no end to it," Bobby warned Thayer, when
he announced his intention of singing for the