tume for the Townsends' circus ball. I'm
li'l' boy carries water for the elephants."

Perry was impressed in spite of himself.

"I'm going to be Julius Caesar," he announced after a moment of
concentration.

"Thought you weren't going!" said Macy.

"Me? Sure, I'm goin'. Never miss a party. Good for the nerves--like
celery."

"Caesar!" scoffed Baily. "Can't be Caesar! He's not about a circus.
Caesar's Shakespeare. Go as a clown."

Perry shook his head.

"Nope; Caesar."

"Caesar?"

"Sure. Chariot."

Light dawned on Baily.

"That's right. Good idea."

Perry looked round the room searchingly.

"You lend me a bathrobe and this tie," he said finally.

Baily considered.

"No good."

"Sure, tha's all I need. Caesar was a savage. They can't kick if I
come as Caesar if he was a savage."

"No," said Baily, shaking his head slowly. "Get a costume over at a
costumer's. Over at Nolak's."

"Closed up."

"Find out."

After a puzzling five minutes at the phone a small, weary voice
managed to convince Perry that it was Mr. Nolak speaking, and that
they would remain open until eight because of the Townsends' ball.
Thus assured, Perry ate a great amount of filet mignon and drank his
third of the last bottle of champagne. At eight-fifteen the man in
the tall hat who stands in front of the Clarendon found him trying
to start his roadster.

"Froze up," said Perry wisely. "The cold froze it. The cold air."

"Froze, eh?"

"Yes. Cold air froze it."

"Can't start it?"

"Nope. Let it stand here till summer. One those hot ole August
days'll thaw it out awright."

"Goin' let it stand?"

"Sure. Let 'er stand. Take a hot thief to steal it. Gemme taxi."

The man in the tall hat summoned a taxi.

"Where to, mister?"

"Go to Nolak's--costume fella."

II

Mrs. Nolak was short and ineffectual looking, and on the cessation
of the world war had belonged for a while to one of the new
nationalities. Owing to the unsettled European conditions she had
never since been quite sure what she was. The shop in which she and
her husband performed their daily stint was dim and ghostly and
peopled with suits of armour and Chinese mandarins and enormous
papier-mache birds suspended from the ceiling. In a vague background
many rows of masks glared eyelessly at the visitor, and there were
glass cases full of crowns and scepters and jewels and enormous
stomachers and paints and powders and crape hair and face creams and