Mrs. Burke for the day, and for Senator Burke and the son, I suppose, for the late afternoon and the evening.

[Pg 39]

Third, there's the Calling-Book. Already I've got down more than a thousand names. The obscurer the women are—the back-district congressmen's wives and the like—the greater the necessity for keeping the calling account straight. I wonder how many public men have had their careers injured or ruined just because their wives didn't keep the calling account straight. They say that men forgive slights, and, when it's to their interest, forget them. But I know the women never do. They keep the knife sharp and wait for a chance to stick it in, for years and years. Of[Pg 40] course, if the Burkes weren't going into this business in a way that makes me think the Senator's looking for the nomination for president I shouldn't be so elaborate. We'd pick out our set and stick to it and ignore the other sets. As it is, I'm going to do this thing thoroughly, as it hasn't been done before.

[Pg 40]

Fourth, there's our Ball-and-Big-Dinner Book. That's got a list of all the young men and another of all the young women. And I'm making notes against the names of those I don't know very well or don't know at all—notes about their personal appearance, eligibility, capacities for dancing, conversation, and so forth and so on. If you're going to make an entertainment a success you've got to know something more or less definite about the people that are coming, whom to ask to certain things[Pg 41] and whom not to ask. Take a man like Phil Harkness, or a girl like Nell Witton, for example. Either of them would ruin a dinner, but Phil shines at a ball, where silence and good steady dancing are what the girls want. As for Nell, she's possible at a ball only if you can be sure John Rush or somebody like him is coming—somebody to sit with her and help her blink at the dancers and be bored. Then there's the Sam Tremenger sort of man—a good talker, but something ruinous when he turns loose in a ball-room and begins to batter the women's toilets to bits. He's a dinner man, but you can't ask him when politics may be discussed—he gets so violent that he not only talks all the time, but makes a deafening clamor and uses swear words—and we still have quiet people who get gooseflesh for damn.

[Pg 41]

[Pg 42]Then there's—let me see, what number—oh, yes—fifth, there's my Acceptance-and-Refusal Book. It's most necessary, both as a direct help and as an indirect check on other books. Then, too, 

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