time this month that he has locked me out, confound him!"

I raised my finger to my lips, cautioning Marshall not to arouse the
whole house. But he would not be silenced--it was early yet,
anyway--he had been to a Friday cotillon and it was a beastly
bore--even the supper was poor--he wanted something to eat. His foot
was on the stairs when he discovered that he was hungry. He discovered
at the same time that he was indebted to me for having let him in, not
alone this time but many others, and he insisted on showing his
appreciation by taking me out to a late supper. I demurred. Marshall
talked louder. I insinuated that he had been drinking, to which he
replied that the Fridays never served anything but weak punch. I
should have protested further, but Mrs. Markham's door opened at the
head of the stairs and I heard her breathing indignantly. For the sake
of quiet I consented, and so it happened that at one o'clock in the
morning I found myself in the street, with my arm tucked under
Marshall's and our faces set toward O'Corrigan's chop-house.

O'Corrigan's has been torn down these many years, but you can see a
score of replicas of it on upper Sixth Avenue and Broadway. Its
plate-glass windows were adorned with set pieces of lobsters and
oysters, celery and apples, and you entered through a revolving door
into an atmosphere laden heavily with kitchen fumes, into a room which
multiplied itself in many mirrors. When you went there for the first
time the man who took you, if he knew his New York, would tell you of
O'Corrigan's rise from waiting at a downtown lunch-counter to the
ownership of these glittering halls.

Of course, Tom Marshall knew O'Corrigan. He hailed him cordially, and
it seemed to me that he had no little pride in the privilege. He even
nodded to the bartender as we passed him, leading me to the archway
whence we could survey the adjoining room to see what was going on
there. But nothing was going on there. These late-night restaurants
are at their best in colored pictures. There they seem to own an
atmosphere of light and joy. There lovely women sip champagne, that
gayest of wines, from dainty glasses, and gallant men seem to say to us
that if you would have health and wealth and happiness you would never
go home until morning, but would live with them in this bright world of
wine and women and song. Really, they are melancholy places,
especially in their gayest hours. If vice really