tt, the first to
rally from the shock, "I'd buy Amalgamated..."

"If I had twenty-five thousand..." began Elsa Doland.

"If I'd had twenty-five thousand in the year nineteen hundred," observed
a gloomy-looking man with spectacles, "I could have started a revolution
in Paraguay."

He brooded sombrely on what might have been.

"Well, I'll tell you exactly what I'm going to do," said Sally. "I'm
going to start with a trip to Europe... France, specially. I've heard
France well spoken of--as soon as I can get my passport; and after I've
loafed there for a few weeks, I'm coming back to look about and find
some nice cosy little business which will let me put money into it and
keep me in luxury. Are there any complaints?"

"Even a couple of thousand on Benny Whistler..." said the mild young
man.

"I don't want your Benny Whistler," said Sally. "I wouldn't have him if
you gave him to me. If I want to lose money, I'll go to Monte Carlo and
do it properly."

"Monte Carlo," said the gloomy man, brightening up at the magic name.
"I was in Monte Carlo in the year '97, and if I'd had another fifty
dollars... just fifty... I'd have..."

At the far end of the table there was a stir, a cough, and the grating
of a chair on the floor; and slowly, with that easy grace which actors
of the old school learned in the days when acting was acting, Mr.
Maxwell Faucitt, the boarding-house's oldest inhabitant, rose to his
feet.

"Ladies," said Mr. Faucitt, bowing courteously, "and..." ceasing to bow
and casting from beneath his white and venerable eyebrows a quelling
glance at certain male members of the boarding-house's younger set who
were showing a disposition towards restiveness, "... gentlemen. I feel
that I cannot allow this occasion to pass without saying a few words."

His audience did not seem surprised. It was possible that life, always
prolific of incident in a great city like New York, might some day
produce an occasion which Mr. Faucitt would feel that he could allow to
pass without saying a few words; but nothing of the sort had happened as
yet, and they had given up hope. Right from the start of the meal they
had felt that it would be optimism run mad to expect the old gentleman
to abstain from speech on the night of Sally Nicholas' farewell
dinner party; and partly because they had braced themselves to it, but
principally because Miss Nicholas' hospitality had left them with a
genial feeling of repletion, they settled th