In a word, I was the first hundred-dollar pocket-handkerchief
that had then appeared in their circles; and had I been a Polish count,
with two sets of moustaches, I could not have been more flattered and
"entertained." My fame soon spread through the rooms, as two little
apartments, with a door between them that made each an alcove of the
other, were called; and even the men, the young ones in particular,
began to take an interest in me. This latter interest, it is true, did
not descend to the minutiae of trimmings and work, or even of fineness,
but the "three figure" had a surprising effect. An elderly lady sent to
borrow me for a moment. It was a queer thing to borrow a
pocket-handkerchief, some will think; but I was lent to twenty people
that night; and while in her hands, I overheard the following little
aside, between two young fashionables, who were quite unconscious of
the acuteness of the senses of our family.

"This must be a rich old chap, this Halfacre, to be able to give his
daughter a hundred-dollar pocket-handkerchief, Tom; one might do well
to get introduced."

"If you'll take my advice, Ned, you'll keep where you are," was the
answer. "You've been to the surrogate's office, and have seen the will
of old Simonds, and KNOW that he has left his daughter seventy-eight
thousand dollars; and, after all, this pocket-handkerchief may be only
a sign. I always distrust people who throw out such lures."

"Oh, rely on it, there is no sham here; Charley Pray told me of this
girl last week, when no one had ever heard of her pocket-handkerchief."

"Why don't Charley, then, take her himself? I'm sure, if I had HIS
imperial, I could pick and choose among all the second-class heiresses
in town."

{imperial = wealth (from a Russian gold coin)}

"Ay, there's the rub, Tom; one is obliged in our business to put up
with the SECOND class. Why can't we aim higher at once, and get such
girls as the Burtons, for instance?"

"The Burtons have, or have had, a mother."

"And haven't all girls mothers? Who ever heard of a man or a woman
without a mother!"

"True, physically; but I mean morally. Now this very Eudosia Halfacre
has no more mother, in the last sense, than you have a wet-nurse. She
has an old woman to help her make a fool of herself; but, in the way of
a mother, she would be better off with a pair of good gum-shoes. A
creature that is just to tell a girl not to wet her feet, and when to
cloak and uncloak, and to