of the house was out. In keeping with the faded appointments
of the tiny room, a Chinese table held, for those who wait and read,
an ancient collection of "Spur" and "Town and Country." As we sat and
smoked, far off through the thin walls we could hear the soft rumble
of voices. Occasionally a bass would rise above the sound, and a
baritone would slide softly and soothingly across the pained roar. The
front door opened and closed twice during the fifteen minutes or so we
waited, and the footsteps that came in went past our room and pattered
further down the hall. Each time, when the steps were out of reach of
hearing, another door would open, and the distant voices would become
almost distinguishable until the door again was shut. I looked
curiously around the walls. Decorated with prints and pictures they
were, yes, but with that faded permanency that to me spells the
furnished house. The rugs were worn, worn to the shredding point, worn
until the spurious Oriental design seemed an eerie Dali drawing. All
it needed was the faroff smell of secondhand ham and cabbage.

The doorman slipped in and beckoned to us, a grim conspirator if ever
I saw one. We followed him back to the entrance hall, back, back, to
where the voices grew louder at every step. A double door--golden oak,
or I don't know wood--barred the end of the hall, and the young fellow
preceded us to throw it open with a semi-flourish. We walked in.

The place was blue with smoke. That was the first thing we saw. Lights
there were in plenty, hanging around, hanging over the great oval
table in the center of the room in a fiery glitter of glassy
brilliants. The room was enormous, and I began to realize why this
house was still in existence. Who cares about rugs if there is just
one single room in the house where a ball or a party could be
comfortably accommodated. Or a conference. I didn't know whose name
appeared on the tax bills, but I would bet that it would be any other
name besides the United States Government.

No group of men or women could produce that much smoke in a short
time. That meeting had been going on for hours. As we stepped in
through the double doors I tried to pick out anyone I knew, but the
glare flickered in my eyes and I saw no face as more than just a pale
blur against a background of tenuous blue. Tentatively I got inside
the doors and they shut behind me with an abrupt finality. Two steps
forward, three, four, five, and Stein drifted