"I don't see how you can make yourself so conspicuous," she protested
in a low voice.

"Why not?" he laughed. "We public characters must boost one another."

"And the price," they heard the doctor declaiming, "is only one dollar
_per_ bottle, or six for five dollars, guar-_an_-teed not only to
drive sciatic rheumatism from the sys-_tem_, but to cure the most
ob-_stin_-ate cases of ague, Bright's disease, cat-a-lepsy, coughs,
colds, cholera, _dys_-pepsia, ery-_sip_-_e_-las, fever _and_ chills,
_gas_-tritis"--

"And so on down to X Y Z, etc.," commented Wallingford as they walked
away.

His wife looked up at him curiously.

"Jim, did you honestly take four bottles of that medicine?" she wanted
to know.

"Take it?" he repeated in amazement. "Certainly not! It isn't meant
for wise people to take. It wouldn't do them any good."

"It wouldn't do anybody any good," she decided with a trace of
contempt.

"Guess again," he advised her. "That dope has cured a million people
that had nothing the matter with 'em."

At the Hotel Deriche in the adjoining block they turned into the huge,
garishly decorated dining-room for their after-theater supper. They
had been in the town only two days, but the head waiter already knew
to come eagerly to meet them, to show them to the best table in the
room, and to assign them the best waiter; also the head waiter himself
remained to take the order, to suggest a delicate, new dish and to
name over, at Wallingford's solicitation, the choice wines in the
cellar that were not upon the wine-list.

This little formality over, Wallingford looked about him complacently.
A pale gentleman with a jet-black beard bowed to him from across the
room.

"Doctor Lazzier," observed Wallingford to his wife. "Most agreeable
chap and has plenty of money."

He bent aside a little to see past his wife's hat, and exchanged a
suave salutation with a bald-headed young man who was with two ladies
and who wore a dove-gray silk bow with his evening clothes.

"Young Corbin," explained Wallingford, "of the Corbin and Paley
department store. He had about two dollars a week spending money till
his father died, and now he and young Paley are turning social
flip-flaps at the rate of twenty a minute. He belongs to the Mark
family and he's great pals with me. Looks good for him, don't it?"

"Jim," she said in earnest reproval, "you mustn't talk that way."

"Of course I'm only joking," he returned. "You know I promi