know—pardon me—that it’s hard to get a bunch of notables together unless you’ve trained for it.’
“‘Don’t fret about that, child,’ says Aunt Maggie. ‘I don’t send out invitations—I issue orders. I’ll have fifty guests here that could n’t be brought together again at any reception unless it were given by King Edward or William Travers Jerome. They are men, of course, and all of ’em either owe me money or intend to. Some of their wives won’t come, but a good many will.’
“Well, I wish you could have been at that banquet. The dinner service was all gold and cut glass. There were about forty men and eight ladies present besides Aunt Maggie and I. You’d never have known the third richest woman in the world. She had on a new black silk dress with so much passementerie on it that it sounded exactly like a hailstorm I heard once when I was staying all night with a girl that lived in a top-floor studio.
“And my dress!—say, Man, I can’t waste the words on you. It was all hand-made lace—where there was any of it at all—and it cost $300. I saw the bill. The men were all bald-headed or white-side-whiskered, and they kept up a running fire of light repartee about 3-per cents. and Bryan and the cotton crop.
“On the left of me was something that talked like a banker, and on my right was a young fellow who said he was a newspaper artist. He was the only—well, I was going to tell you.
“After the dinner was over Mrs. Brown and I went
