r them, nor for
the "piker," nor for the needy clerk, but for the furious spenders.

Let us therefore view the Beach Club only as an interesting adjunct to
Palm Beach life, and let us admit that, as such, it is altogether in the
picture. Let us, in short, seek, upon this brief excursion, not only to
recover from our case of grippe, but to recover also that sense of the
purely esthetic, without regard to moral issues, which we used to enjoy
some years ago, before our legislatures legislated virtue into us. Let
us soar, upon the wings of our checkbook, in one final flight to the
realms of unalloyed beauty. Let us, in considering this most
extravagantly passionate and passionately extravagant of American
resorts, be great artists, who are above morals. Let us refuse
pointblank to consider morals at all. For by so doing we may avoid
giving ourselves away.

* * * * *

The season wanes. Crowds on the beach grow thinner. Millionaires begin
to move their private cars from Palm Beach sidings, and depart for other
fashionable places farther north. Croupiers at the Beach Club stand idle
for an hour at a time, though ready to spin the wheel, invitingly, for
any one who saunters in. The shops hold cut-price sales. And we,
regarding somewhat sadly our white trousers, perceive that there does
not remain a single spotless pair. The girl in Mr. Foster's fruit store
has more leisure, now, and smiles agreeably as we pass upon our way to
the hotel dining-room. The waiter, likewise, is not pressed for time.

"They was seven-hunduhd an' twe've folks heah yestahday," he says. "On'y
six-fohty-three to-day. Ah reckon they a-goin' t' close the Breakuhs day
aftuh t'-mo'w."

Still the flowers bloom; still the place is beautiful; still the weather
is not uncomfortably warm. Nevertheless the season dies. And so it comes
about that we depart.

The ride through Florida is tedious. The miles of palmettoes, with
leaves glittering like racks of bared cutlasses in the sun, the miles of
dark swamp, in which the cypresses seem to wade like dismal club-footed
men, the miles of live-oak strung with their sad tattered curtains of
Spanish moss, the miles of sandy waste, of pineapple and orange groves,
of pines with feathery palm-like tops, above all the sifting of fine
Florida dust, which covers everything inside the car as with a coat of
flour--these make you wish that you were North again.

The train stops at a station.