rst to the right
and then to the left, and finally turned down-town, in which direction
the Claridge reared its twelve stories of masonry at the corner of
Forty-fourth and Sixth.

At about that minute these were the remarks exchanged through the open
door that connected two little cell-like rooms at the Y. W. C. A.:

"Aren't you going to bed right away? I'm so sleepy that I'm brushing my
face instead of my hair," Miss Adair called to Miss Lindsey. A desperate
and continual desire for sleep is the pest that haunts the rural visitor
to New York and Miss Adair's young health was easily its prey. She did
not readily learn to run on nerves.

"You go to bed; but I've got to let the hem of my tailored linen down
two inches, so it will brush against those rhododendrons as a lady's
should, and sew up the opening in the neck of my chiffon blouse an inch
and a half, so I won't spill any of Mrs. Farraday's tea down it.
Good-night!" It goes to say that when Greek meets Vandal or the East
meets the West, dents occur.

And, as Mrs. Farraday had commanded, the rhododendron party at West
Marsh came to pass, to the vast enjoyment of all present, though Mr.
Vandeford's absence was a deprivation to the entire company. And that
night their friendly hearts would have ached if they had been able to
get a vision of his strenuosity. Godfrey Vandeford, Theatrical Producer,
was in full action, and chips from "The Purple Slipper" were flying in
all directions.

In his bedroom in the Seventy-third Street apartment, Mr. Vandeford was
stripped for the fray--to his silk pajamas--and he lay stretched upon
his fumed-oak bed, with both reading-lights turned on full blaze. In his
hands was the manuscript of "The Purple Slipper," which Mazie Villines
had literally torn from under the hands of Grant Howard to deliver to
Mr. Vandeford on Saturday afternoon, just a day later than the time set
for its deliverance.

"My check and Grant's down, or no play," she had said upon entering Mr.
Vandeford's apartment at about the setting of the Saturday sun. "He's
off for a two week's d.t., and I gotter take care of him. Twelve-fifty
is the way to write it."

"Six hundred, and not a cent more without Grant's signature," answered
Mr. Vandeford. Mr. Adolph Meyers, who was listening to the conversation
from the hall from which he had ushered Miss Villines into Mr.
Vandeford's library, set a spring-lock on the entrance door of the
apartment, and entered the library