s. Shadd's
musicale.

Incidentally, Jockobinski was very affable and the function went off
well. Everybody was there and no one would for a moment have thought
that there was anything strange in the transfer of the scene from Onyx
House to Bolivar Lodge.

"Who wrote that letter, Henriette?" I asked late in the evening when
the last guest had gone.

"Who do you suppose, Bunny, my boy?" she asked with a grin. "Bunderby?"

"No," said I.

"You've guessed right," said Henriette.

As a postscript let me say that until he reads this I don't believe
Tommy Dare ever guessed what a successful joke he perpetrated upon Mrs.
Shadd and the fair Henriette. Even then I doubt if he realizes what a
good one it was on--everybody.

XI

THE ADVENTURE OF MRS. INNITT'S COOK

"It is curious, Bunny," said Henriette the other morning after an
unusually late breakfast, "to observe by what qualities certain of these
Newport families have arrived, as the saying is. The Gasters of course
belong at the top by patent right. Having invented American society, or
at least the machine that at present controls it, they are entitled to
all the royalties it brings in. The Rockerbilts got there all of a
sudden by the sheer lavishness of their entertainment and their ability
to give bonds to keep it up. The Van Varick Shadds flowed in through
their unquestioned affiliation with the ever-popular Delaware Shadds
and the Roe-Shadds of the Hudson, two of the oldest and most respected
families of the United States, reinforced by the Napoleonic qualities of
the present Mrs. Shadd in the doing of unexpected things. The Gullets,
thanks to the fact that Mrs. Gullet is the acknowledged mother-in-law of
three British dukes, two Italian counts, and a French marquis, are
safely anchored in the social haven where they would be, and the rumor
that Mrs. Gushington-Andrews has written a book that is a trifle risque
fixes her firmly in the social constellation--but the Innitts with only
eighty thousand dollars per annum, the Dedbroke-Hickses with nothing a
year, the Oliver-Sloshingtons with an income of judgments, the study of
their arrival is mighty interesting."

"It doesn't interest me much," quoth I. "Indeed, this American smart
set don't appeal to me either for its smartness or its setness."

"Bunny!" cried Henriette, with a silvery ripple of laughter. "Do be
careful. An epigram from you? My dear boy, you'll be down with
brain-fever if you don't watc