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é rial .”
    “Oh, yes.” I could not tell if the Colonel was impressed or not. In any case, we were at that instant stopped by a nervous young man; with a sidelong glance at the disapproving Colonel, he pressed his card upon me. “I’m from Ritzman’s, sir. We’d like to do you, sir. And the Princess, too, sir. If we may, sir.” He took to his heels.
    Emma was amused. “What will Mr. Ritzman want to do to us?”
    “To photograph you.” The Colonel had stopped before a mysterious grilled gate that seemed to be locked. We stopped, too.
    “They have a store, across the square. Ritzman photographs everyone of importance.”
    “But what,” asked Emma, “does he do with the pictures?”
    “Sells them. Great demand for portraits of a princess like yourself ... and a celebrated author,” he added quickly as the grilled gate was flung open to reveal a small panelled chamber containing a uniformed man gravely fiddling with mysterious wheels and levers. At the Colonel’s insistence we entered the closet. The door shut behind us and we rose into the air .
    Emma is delighted, but I confess to a certain giddiness, not so much going up as when, in obedience to the law of gravity, the thing comes down and one’s stomach seems not to keep up with the rest of the falling body.
    Our suite is large and nicely furnished, with flowers everywhere—so many, in fact, that between the overheating and the odor of the tuberoses I had had a headache most of the evening. The private bathroom is indeed a luxury unknown in Europe’s hotels, and rare in New York.
    On a table in front of the marble fireplace was a stack of letters and telegrams. I could not wait to open them, but politeness required that I wait until the Colonel demonstrated for us the many conveniences of the suite, including the new calcium or lime lights that cast a rather lurid glow over everything, though they make reading particularly easy for one who is developing, as I am, cataracts.
    “Mrs. Paran Stevens has invited you to her next Sunday.” The Colonel indicated one of the envelopes. “She always has music. Usually someone from the opera. She hopes you will come.”
    “You are too kind,” Emma murmured, removing furs (her mother’s, I fear).
    “She’ll want to see you, too, Mr. Apgar.” The Colonel was casually agreeable, and John blushed and said that he would be honoured.
    After a demonstration of the mysterious speaking tubes that connect the suite with those bowels of the hotel where dwell valets and maids and waiters, the Colonel withdrew.
    “We’re really here.” Emma ran to the window to look out onto the square filled with omnibuses and carriages and telegraph poles and goats (actually the goats were now trotting down East Twenty-fourth Street).
    A large sign on a building just opposite implores one and all to drink Old Jacob Thompson’s Sarsaparilla.
    Since I still felt I was aboard ship and the floor appeared to be heaving in a most unnatural way, I sat down beside the fire and began to open telegrams whilst John showed Emma those sights of the town that are visible from the window.
    “That’s the Union Club over there. It’s quite nice. We’re all members,” said John. Apparently the Apgars move in a herd up, down and all around the island.
    But Emma was more concerned with the beggars.
    “Why don’t you do something with them?”
    “Like what?”
    “The Emperor would have started a war.” Emma laughed. She was, however, quite serious.
    “But we’ve just had a war.”
    “Well, you need another one. And very soon.”
    I found the invitation from Mr. Paran Stevens for Sunday night, to hear the tenor Mario. Also, an invitation to be guest of honour at the Lotos Club any Saturday of my choosing, to give an impromptu chat. A note from Mr. Hartman, wanting to know if I would be interested in a lecture tour. A message from William Cullen Bryant (the whole name spelled out) to say that he would be happy to have me for breakfast any