"Bosworth! How—how dare you?" he gasped.

"Can't you see, dad? This is the richest thing I've ever known. Don't be afraid of 'em. They're wax figures, every one of them!"

Mr. Van Pycke started. Then he stared.

"Well, upon my soul!" he gasped. He repeated this remark four or five times during a hasty parade in front of the group, in each instance peering rudely and with growing temerity into the pink and white face of a surpassingly beautiful lady.

"It seems to me that I recognize this one," he said, with a cackle of joy. "I've seen her in Altman's window. 'Pon my soul I have, Bosworth."

"I don't know what Laura's game is, but, by Jove, it's ripping, I'll say that for it," said Bosworth, his face beaming. "How many of them are there?" He counted. "Fourteen. Seven spiketails and seven directoires. Great!"

The two gentlemen withdrew to the upper end of the room, to better the effect. From the dining-room, four rooms away, came the more distinct sounds of laughter and conversation.

"There is a real party out there," said Bosworth, rubbing his chin contemplatively. "I wonder what's up?"

Mr. Van Pycke sat down and twirled his thin mustache, first one side and then the other, murmuring "By Jove!" over and over again in a most perplexed way. Bosworth stood, with his chin between finger and thumb, thoughtfully viewing the inanimate group. For several minutes his face indicated the most penetrating contemplation of the exhibit down the room. He was still a trifle dizzy, but in no danger of losing his attitude of sober reflection.

There were blond ladies and brunettes, old ladies and young ones, and some who were neither; all beautifully, elaborately gowned in the latest models from Paris. Their starry glass eyes gazed into space with the same innocuous stare that baffles all attempts to divert it through plate-glass windows. Some were sitting, some were standing. Gentlemen in evening clothes, with monocles or opera hats—mostly plebeian persons, from Eighth Avenue, you'd say—stood vaguely but stanchly in juxtaposition to ladies who paid no heed to them, but who, however, were not unique in their abstraction. Fuzzy-mustached gentlemen were they, with pink cheeks and iron-clad shoulders. They stared intently but not attentively at the chandeliers or the wall-paper, unwinking gallants who seemed only conscious of their clothes.

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