for fun, the eyes and ears of the entire smiling beach bear
witness. Watch them as they clasp hands and run down to the water's
edge; see them prancing playfully where the waves die on the sand, while
devoted swains launch the floating mattress upon which it is their
custom to bask so picturesquely; see them now as they rush into the
green waves and mount the softly rocking thing; observe the gleam of
their white arms as, idly, they splash and paddle; note the languid
grace of their recumbence: chins on hands, heels waving lazily in air;
hear them squeal in inharmonious unison, as a young member of the
"Browning Club," makes as though to splatter them, or mischievously
threatens to overturn their unwieldy couchlike craft. Free from the
restriction of ideas about "society," about the "tradition" of Palm
Beach, about "convention," they seem to detect no difference between
this resort and certain summer beaches, more familiar to them, and at
the same time more used to boisterousness and cachinnation. They go
everywhere, these girls. You will see them having big cocktails, in a
little while, on the porch of the Breakers; you will see them having
tea, and dancing under the dry rustling palm fronds of the cocoanut
grove, when the colored electric lights begin to glow in the luminous
semi-tropical twilight; and you will see them, resplendent, at the Beach
Club, dining, or playing at the green-topped tables.

The Beach Club has been for some time, I suppose, the last redoubt held
in this country by the forces of open, or semi-open gambling. Every now
and then one hears a rumor that it is to be stormed and taken by the
hosts of legislative piety, yet on it goes, upon its gilded way--a
place, it should be said, of orderly, spectacular distinction. The Beach
Club occupies a plain white house, low-spreading and unpretentious, but
fitted most agreeably within, and boasting a superb cuisine. Not every
one is admitted. Members have cards, and must be vouched for, formally,
by persons known to those who operate the place. Many of the quiet
pleasant people who, leading their own lives regardless of the splurging
going on about them, form the background of Palm Beach life--much as
"walking ladies and gentlemen" form the crowd in a spectacular
theatrical production--have never seen the inside of the Beach Club; and
I have little doubt that many visitors who drop in at Palm Beach for a
few days never so much as hear of it. It is not run fo