s, if that's the word; but I knew it was no
good appealing to his better nature. He said he'd have dinner ordered
for us in another palm grill that had more palms in it.

Jake Berger spoke up for the first time to any one but a waiter. He
asked why a palm room necessarily? He said the tropic influence of these
palms must affect the waiters that had to stand under 'em all day,
because they wouldn't take his orders fast enough. He said the
languorous Southern atmosphere give 'em pellagra or something. Jeff
Tuttle says Jake must be mistaken because the pellagra is a kind of a
Spanish dance, he believes. Jake said maybe so; maybe it was tropic
neurasthenia the waiters got. Ben said he'd sure look out for a fresh
waiter that hadn't been infected yet. When I left 'em Jake was holding a
split-second watch on the waiter he'd just given an order to.

By seven P.M. I'd been made into a work of art by the hotel help and
might of been observed progressing through the palatial lobby with my
purple and gold opera cloak sort of falling away from the shoulders.
Jeff Tuttle observed me for one. He was in his dress suit all right,
standing over in a corner having a bell-hop tie his tie for him that he
never can learn to do himself. That's the way with Jeff; he simply
wasn't born for the higher hotel life. In his dress suit he looks
exactly like this here society burglar you're always seeing a picture of
in the papers. However, I let him trail me along into this jewelled palm
room with tapestries and onyx pillars and prices for food like the town
had been three years beleagured by an invading army. Jake Berger is
alone at our table sipping a stinger and looking embarrassed because
he'll have to say something. He gets it over as soon as he can. He says
Ben has ordered dinner and stepped out and that Lon has stepped out to
look for him but they'll both be back in a minute, so set down and order
one before this new waiter is overcome by the tropic miasma. We do the
same, and in comes Lon looking very excited in the dress suit he was
married in back about 1884.

"Ben's found one," he squeals excitedly--"a real genuine one that was
born right here in New York and is still living in the same house he was
born in. What do you know about that? Ben is frantic with delight and is
going to bring him to dine with us as soon as he gets him brushed off
down in the wash room and maybe a drink or two thrown into him to revive
him from the shock of Ben