was plagued with both. While going
through with the toasts, his mind was busy with poor Henry Vail
suffering in a smallpox hospital. In his graceful response to the
sentiment, "The President of the Hasheesh Club," he alluded to the
retiring president, and made some witty remark--I forget what--about
his being a denizen of Lexington Avenue; but in saying Lexington Avenue
he came near slipping into Huckleberry Street, and in fact he did get
the first syllable out before he checked himself. He was horrified
afterward to think how near he had come, later in the evening, to
addressing the company as "Gentlemen of the Smallpox Hospital."

Charley drank more wine and punch than usual. Those who sat near him
looked at one another significantly, in a way that implied their belief
that Vanderhuyn was too much elated over his election. Little did they
know that at that moment the presidency of the famous Hasheesh Club
appeared to Charley the veriest bawble in the world. If he had not
known how futile would be any attempt to gain an entrance to the
smallpox hospital, he would have excused himself and started for the
island on the instant.

But it was one o'clock before Charley got away. Out of the brilliantly
lighted rooms he walked, stunned with grief, and a little heavy with
the wine and punch he had drunk, for in his preoccupation of mind he
had forgotten to be as cautious as usual. Following an impulse, he took
a car and went directly downtown, and then made his way to Huckleberry
Street. He stopped at a saloon door and asked if they could tell him
where Mr. Vail's rooms were.

"The blissed man as wint about like a saint? Shore and I can," said the
boozy Irishman. "It's right ferninst where yer afther stan'in, up the
stairs on the corner of Granefield Coort--over there, bedad."

Seeing a light in the rooms indicated by the man, Charley crossed over,
passed through a sorrowful-looking crowd at the door, and went up the
stairs. He found the negro woman who kept the rooms for Vail standing
talking to an Irish woman. Both the women were deeply pitted with
smallpox.

He inquired if they could tell him how Mr. Vail was.

"O honey, he's done dead sence three o'clock," said the black woman,
sitting down in a chair and beginning to wipe her eyes on her apron.
"This Misses Mcgroarty's jist done tole me this minute."

The Irish woman came round in front of Mr. Vanderhuyn and looked
inquisitively at him a moment, and then said, "F