hen our youngest
daughter rebelled at having to go to a children's party?

"Why must I go to parties?" she insisted.

"In order," replied her mother, "that you may be invited to other
parties."

It was the unconscious epitome of my consort's theory of the whole duty
of man.

CHAPTER II

MY FRIENDS

By virtue of my being a successful man my family has an established
position in New York society. We are not, to be sure--at least, my wife
and I are not--a part of the sacrosanct fifty or sixty who run the show
and perform in the big ring; but we are well up in the front of the
procession and occasionally do a turn or so in one of the side rings. We
give a couple of dinners each week during the season and a ball or two,
besides a continuous succession of opera and theater parties.

Our less desirable acquaintances, and those toward whom we have minor
social obligations, my wife disposes of by means of an elaborate "at
home," where the inadequacies of the orchestra are drowned in the roar
of conversation, and which a sufficient number of well-known people are
good-natured enough to attend in order to make the others feel that the
occasion is really smart and that they are not being trifled with. This
method of getting rid of one's shabby friends and their claims is, I am
informed, known as "killing them off with a tea."

We have a slaughter of this kind about once in two years. In return for
these courtesies we are invited yearly by the elite to some two hundred
dinners, about fifty balls and dances, and a large number of
miscellaneous entertainments such as musicales, private theatricals,
costume affairs, bridge, poker, and gambling parties; as well as in the
summer to clambakes--where champagne and terrapin are served by
footmen--and other elegant rusticities.

Besides these _chic_ functions we are, of course, deluged with
invitations to informal meals with old and new friends, studio parties,
afternoon teas, highbrow receptions and _conversaziones_, reformers'
lunch parties, and similar festivities. We have cut out all these long
ago. Keeping up with our smart acquaintances takes all our energy and
available time. There are several old friends of mine on the next block
to ours whom I have not met socially for nearly ten years.

We have definitely arrived however. There is no question about that. We
are in society and entitled to all the privileges pertaining thereto.
What are they? you ask. Why, the pr