er
hands in surrender, and sinks to the floor._)

THE YOUNG MAN: (_In great alarm_) Good Lord! She's fainted! I'll
be right in.

(JULIE'S _eyes light on the towel which has slipped from_ LOIS'S
_inert hand._)

JULIE: In that case I'll be right out.

(_She puts her hands on the side of the tub to lift herself out and
a murmur, half gasp, half sigh, ripples from the audience.

A Belasco midnight comes quickly down and blots out the stage._)

CURTAIN.

_FANTASIES_

THE DIAMOND AS BIG AS THE RITZ

1

John T. Unger came from a family that had been well known in Hades--a
small town on the Mississippi River--for several generations. John's
father had held the amateur golf championship through many a heated
contest; Mrs. Unger was known "from hot-box to hot-bed," as the local
phrase went, for her political addresses; and young John T. Unger, who
had just turned sixteen, had danced all the latest dances from New
York before he put on long trousers. And now, for a certain time, he
was to be away from home. That respect for a New England education
which is the bane of all provincial places, which drains them yearly
of their most promising young men, had seized upon his parents.
Nothing would suit them but that he should go to St. Midas's School
near Boston--Hades was too small to hold their darling and gifted son.

Now in Hades--as you know if you ever have been there--the names of
the more fashionable preparatory schools and colleges mean very
little. The inhabitants have been so long out of the world that,
though they make a show of keeping up-to-date in dress and manners and
literature, they depend to a great extent on hearsay, and a function
that in Hades would be considered elaborate would doubtless be hailed
by a Chicago beef-princess as "perhaps a little tacky."

John T. Unger was on the eve of departure. Mrs. Unger, with maternal
fatuity, packed his trunks full of linen suits and electric fans, and
Mr. Unger presented his son with an asbestos pocket-book stuffed with
money.

"Remember, you are always welcome here," he said. "You can be sure,
boy, that we'll keep the home fires burning."

"I know," answered John huskily.

"Don't forget who you are and where you come from," continued his
father proudly, "and you can do nothing to harm you. You are an
Unger--from Hades."

So the old man and the young shook hands, and John walked away with
tears streaming from his eyes. Ten minutes later he had