They are building another hansom, and then there
will be plenty of hansoms for all. At the hotel Johnny claimed I
had a drag because I drew a room with a window in it. Breakfast
was hardly over until Bud, without consulting us at all, commenced
arrangements for giving a swell dinner to a couple of heiresses
who lived on Eighteenth Street and who were worth eight millions,
or who lived in Eighth Street and were worth eighty millions--
Johnny and I didn't know which. Bud gave us a lot of hot air about
his mother's cousin standing fifteen balls in the New York Four,
and how that made him a nonresident member, and if we did just
as he said, he would put us in right. He told us that there were
thousands of people right in New York City, any one of whom would
give a cool million for our opportunity. Johnny immediately began
to figure, on how he would treat certain people over in Pittsburg
who had given him the eye in bygone days; and I got so struck on
myself that I cut the head waiter dead, although I had known him
intimately for years. Along about 11 A.M. the deal went through
by 'phone for seven o'clock that evening. Bud went to get shaved,
and Johnny and I retired to the bar to wait until it was time to
get ready for the dinner.
Well, sir, I never met so many people in all my life as we met
in that bar.
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