The Big Town | Page 8

everything was fixed.
"They'll give us a single room with bath and a double room with bath
for fifteen dollars a day," she said.
"'Give us' is good!" said I.
"I told him we'd wired for reservations and it wasn't our fault if the wire
didn't get here," she said. "He was awfully nice."
Our rooms was right close to each other on the twenty-first floor. On
the way up we decided by two votes to one that we'd dress for dinner. I
was still monkeying with my tie when Katie come in for Ella to look
her over. She had on the riskiest dress she'd bought in Chi.
"It's a pretty dress," she said, "but I'm afraid maybe it's too daring for
just a hotel dining room."
Say we hadn't no sooner than set down in the hotel dining room when
two other gals come in that made my team look like they was dressed
for a sleigh ride with Doc Cook.
"I guess you don't feel so daring now," I said. "Compared to that baby
in black you're wearing Jess Willard's ulster."
"Do you know what that black gown cost?" said Ella. "Not a cent under
seven hundred dollars."
"That would make the material twenty-one hundred dollars a yard," I
says.
"I'd like to know where she got it," said Katie.
"Maybe she cut up an old stocking," said I.

"I wished now," said the Mrs., "that we'd waited till we got here before
we bought our clothes."
"You can bet one thing," says Katie. "Before we're ast out anywhere on
a real party we'll have something to wear that isn't a year old."
"First thing to-morrow morning," says the Mrs., "we'll go over on Fifth
Avenue and see what we can see."
"They'll only be two on that excursion," I says.
"Oh, we don't want you along," said Ella. "But I do wished you'd go to
some first-class men's store and get some ties and shirts and things that
don't look like an embalmer."
Well, after a wile one of the waiters got it in his head that maybe we
hadn't came in to take a bath, so he fetched over a couple of programs.
"Never mind them," I says. "What's ready? We're in a hurry."
"The Long Island Duckling's very nice," he said. "And how about some
nice au gratin potatoes and some nice lettuce and tomato salad with
Thousand Island dressing, and maybe some nice French pastry?"
"Everything seems to be nice here," I said. "But wait a minute. How
about something to drink?"
He give me a mysterious smile.
"Well," he said, "they're watching us pretty close here, but we serve
something we call a cup. It comes from the bar and we're not supposed
to know what the bartender puts in it."
"We'll try and find out," I said. "And rush this order through, as we're
starved."
So he frisked out and was back again in less than an hour with another
guy to help carry the stuff, though Lord knows he could of parked the
three ducklings on one eyelid and the whole meal on the back of his

hand. As for the cup, when you tasted it they wasn't no big mystery
about what the bartender had put in it--a bottle of seltzer and a prune
and a cherry and an orange peel, and maybe his finger. The check come
to eighteen dollars and Ella made me tip him the rest of a twenty.
Before dinner the gals had been all for staying up a wile and looking
the crowd over, but when we was through they both owned up that they
hadn't slept much on the train and was ready for bed.
Ella and Kate was up early in the morning. They had their breakfast
without me and went over to stun Fifth Avenue. About ten o'clock
Francis phoned to say he'd call round for us that evening and take us to
dinner. The gals didn't get back till late in the afternoon, but from one
o'clock on I was too busy signing for packages to get lonesome. Ella
finally staggered in with some more and I told her about our invitation.
"Yes, I know," she said.
"How do you know?" I ast her.
"He told us," she said. "We had to call him up to get a check cashed."
"You got plenty nerve!" I said. "How does he know your checks is
good?"
"Well, he likes us," she said. "You'll like us too when you see us in
some of the gowns we bought."
"Some!" I said.
"Why, yes," said the Mrs. "You don't think a girl can go round in New
York with one evening dress!"
"How much money did you spend to-day?" I ast her.
"Well," she