s had it that the father-in-law had presented the
bride with a cheque for a million dollars. Montague could not but
wonder if it was the million that had been taken from his client!

There was to be a "bachelor dinner" at the Millionaires' on the night
before the wedding, to which he and Oliver had been invited. As he was
thinking of taking up his case, he went to his brother, saying that he
wished to decline; but Oliver had been getting back his courage day by
day, and declared that it was more important than ever now that he
should hold his ground, and face his enemies--for Alice's sake, if not
for his own. And so Montague went to the dinner, and saw deeper yet
into the history of the stolen millions.

It was a very beautiful affair, in the beginning. There was a large
private dining-room, elaborately decorated, with a string orchestra
concealed in a bower of plants. But there were cocktails even on the
side-board at the doorway; and by the time the guests had got to the
coffee, every one was hilariously drunk. After each toast they would
hurl their glasses over their shoulders. The purpose of a "bachelor
dinner," it appeared, was a farewell to the old days and the boon
companions; so there were sentimental and comic songs which had been
composed for the occasion, and were received with whirlwinds of
laughter.

By listening closely and reading between the lines, one might get quite
a history of the young host's adventurous career. There was a house up
on the West Side; and there was a yacht, with, orgies in every part of
the world. There was the summer night in Newport harbour, when some one
had hit upon the dazzling scheme of freezing twenty-dollar gold pieces
in tiny blocks of ice, to be dropped down the girls' backs! And there
was a banquet in a studio in New York, when a huge pie had been brought
on, from which a half-nude girl had emerged, with a flock of canary
birds about her! Then there was a damsel who had been wont to dance
upon the tops of supper tables, clad in diaphanous costume; and who had
got drunk after a theatre-party, and set out to smash up a Broadway
restaurant. There was a cousin from Chicago, a wild lad, who made a
speciality of this diversion, and whose mistresses were bathed in
champagne.--Apparently there were numberless places in the city where
such orgies were carried on continually; there were private clubs, and
artists' "studios"--there were several allusions to a high tower, which
Mon