amples of architectural art in New York,
lighter in kind than these, and when I was there the most recent, was a
new ladies' club, which largely owed its existence--so I was told--to
the aid of Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan. Within and without, from its halls
to its numerous bedrooms, the taste displayed was perfect. When I was in
New York it was just about to be opened, and I was invited to take part
in the ceremony by delivering an inaugural address. I took for my
subject the Influence of Women on Industry; and the pith of what I had
to say was compressed into a single anecdote which I had heard only the
day before. My informant had just been told it by one of Tiffany's
salesmen. A few days previously the great jeweler's shop had been
entered by a couple singularly unlike in aspect to the patrons who were
accustomed to frequent it. One of them was a weather-beaten man in a
rough pilot jacket; the other was an odd old woman bundled up in a
threadbare coat of the cheapest imitation fur. The man, with a gruff
shyness, blurted out, "I should like to see a diamond necklace." The
salesman with some hesitation put a necklace before him of no very
precious kind. The man eyed it askance and said, dubiously, "Is that the
best you've got?" The price of this was twenty pounds. The salesman
produced another and a somewhat larger ornament. The price of this was
forty. The man, still dissatisfied, said, "Have you nothing better
still?" "If," said the salesman, by way of getting rid of him, "by
better you mean more expensive, I can show you another. The price of
that is four hundred." This drama was still repeated, till the salesman,
out of pure curiosity, put before him one the price of which was a
thousand. The man, however, again repeated his one unvarying question,
"Is that the best you've got?" The salesman, at last losing patience,
said, "Well, if it should happen to interest you, I can let you have a
look at the most magnificent necklace that money could buy in New York
City to-day. The price of that necklace is fifty thousand pounds." He
turned to put it away, but the weather-beaten man stopped him. He thrust
a hand into the pocket of his rough jacket and extracted from its
recesses an immense bundle of notes. He counted out the sum which the
salesman named. He clasped the necklace round the old woman's threadbare
collar and exclaimed, in a tone of triumph, "Didn't I always tell you
that as soon as I'd made my pile you should have the