r--poured
out the wine with each course, I could feel that some
great trouble was impending over my friends.

After Mrs. Ashcroft-Fowler had risen and left us, and we
were alone over our port wine, I drew my chair near to
Fowler's and I said, "My dear Fowler, I'm an old friend
and you'll excuse me if I seem to be taking a liberty.
But I can see that you and your wife are in trouble."

"Yes," he said very sadly and quietly, "we are."

"Excuse me," I said. "Tell me--for it makes a thing easier
if one talks about it--is it anything about Meadows?"

"Yes," he said, "it is about Meadows."

There was silence for a moment, but I knew already what
Fowler was going to say. I could feel it coming.

"Meadows," he said presently, constraining himself to
speak with as little emotion as possible, "is leaving
us."

"Poor old chap!" I said, taking his hand.

"It's hard, isn't it?" he said. "Franklin left last
winter--no fault of ours; we did everything we could
--and now Meadows."

There was almost a sob in his voice.

"He hasn't spoken definitely as yet," Fowler went on,
"but we know there's hardly any chance of his staying."

"Does he give any reason?" I asked.

"Nothing specific," said Fowler. "It's just a sheer case
of incompatibility. Meadows doesn't like us."

He put his hand over his face and was silent.

I left very quietly a little later, without going up to
the drawing-room. A few days afterwards I heard that
Meadows had gone. The Ashcroft-Fowlers, I am told, are
giving up in despair. They are going to take a little
suite of ten rooms and four baths in the Grand Palaver
Hotel, and rough it there for the winter.

Yet one must not draw a picture of the rich in colours
altogether gloomy. There are cases among them of genuine,
light-hearted happiness.

I have observed this is especially the case among those
of the rich who have the good fortune to get ruined,
absolutely and completely ruined. They may do this on
the Stock Exchange or by banking or in a dozen other
ways. The business side of getting ruined is not difficult.

Once the rich are ruined, they are, as far as my observation
goes, all right. They can then have anything they want.

I saw this point illustrated again just recently. I was
walking with a friend of mine and a motor passed bearing
a neatly dressed young man, chatting gaily with a pretty
woman. My friend raised his hat and gave it a jaunty and
cheery swing in the air as if to wave g