aist makers, I'm
standin' behind the counter wearin' a braided jacket, givin' out check
coupons, and stowin' away hats and top-coats for Master Reginald and
other buddin' sports of the younger set. Seems this is the final blowout
of Miss Somebody's afternoon dancin' class, and no one was allowed
inside unless Father had his name printed in bright red ink in the
social register.

A hot lot of young gold spooners they was too; some of 'em not as old as
me by a couple of years, and swellin' around in dinky Tuxes and white
kids. One of 'em even hands me in a silver-headed cane.

"Careful of that stick, my man," says he.

"Oh, sure!" says I. "Puppah'd be wild if anything happened to it,
wouldn't he?"

And you should have heard the talk they had as they loafs around the
cloakroom between the numbers,--all about the awful things they did at
prep school, how they bunked the masters, and smuggled brandied peaches
up to their rooms, and rough-housed durin' mornin' prayers. Almost made
your blood run cold--not.

When they got to discussin' the girls, though, and sayin' how such a one
was a "jolly sort," and others was "bloomin' rotters," it made me
seasick and it was a relief when they took to whisperin' things I
couldn't hear about the chaperons. After intermission they come sneakin'
in by twos and threes to hit up their cigarettes.

It was about eleven-thirty and there was four or five of 'em in the
cloakroom, puffin' away languid like real clubmen, when in drifts a
young lady all in pink silk and gold net and hails one of the wicked
bunch.

"Bobby," says she, "you ought to be ashamed of yourself!"

"Run on now, Vee," says he. "Told you when I asked you to come that I
wasn't a dancing man, y'know."

"Fudge!" says she, stampin' her foot. "You think it's smart to take that
pose, don't you? Well, you wait!"

And, say, you talk about your haughty beauts! Why, she was a little the
silkiest young queen I ever had a real close view of,--the slimmest feet
and ankles, reg'lar cameo-cut face all tinted up natural like a bunch of
sweet peas, and a lot of straw-colored hair as fine as cobwebs. She was
a thoroughbred stunner, this Miss Vee was, and mad all over.

"I haven't been on the floor for four numbers," she goes on. "You just
wait!"

"You wouldn't be cad enough to peach on us for smokin', would you?" says
Bobby.

"Wouldn't I, though!" says she.

That starts a stampede. All but Bobby chucks away their cigarettes and