or Hindoo, you've had your glimpse, haven't you?
Suppose we move on and get a glimpse or two of something worth seeing."

"Oh, but we've seen it all only from the outside! We've been like the audience at a show—we haven't had any part in it. And it's so much more interesting behind the scenes!"

"It's dull enough from in front, heaven knows!" agreed Rushford. "If I
had my way, I'd ring down the curtain and close the show up this minute.
It's the worst I ever saw! And I very much doubt if a respectable
American family has any business behind the scenes!"

"You're jaundiced, dad," laughed Sue. "You're looking at the place through a yellow film of prejudice. One must enter into the spirit of the thing!"

Rushford groaned.

"I'm afraid I'm too set in my ways, Susie," he said, dismally. "I've lived in America too long. You might as well ask me to dance the can-can, and be done with it!"

"Besides," continued Sue, "it's just as Nell says. We're on the outside—we haven't got a foothold. There's something the matter."

"Maybe they think I'm that Chicago cashier who got away with a million, not long ago. On second thought, though, I don't believe that would make any difference. That fellow would find a very congenial circle here. He wouldn't have any difficulty in getting behind the scenes!"

"Sue and I have been thinking it over," said Nell, "and we've concluded that it must be something about the hotel. We seem to have picked out the wrong one."

"The place is empty, and that's a fact," agreed Rushford.

"It's unnaturally so," said Sue. "Something's the matter with it. It's taboo for some reason."

"Well, it's good enough for me," remarked her father. "After all, there isn't much difference in prisons! But I want to repeat, as emphatically as possible, that I can't keep on loafing here for a month and preserve my sanity. Don't you see how much whiter my hair's getting? I'm willing to do anything in reason to oblige you, and I fully realise the importance of your sociological and ethnological studies—"

Sue's hand on his mouth stopped him.

"Take a breath, dad," she cautioned him. "Take a breath. Those were mighty long words."

"As I was about to remark," continued Rushford, calmly, taking the hand away, "I am, of course, a doting parent—who would not be with two such children? But, candidly, I don't just see where I come in. I tell you, girls, I've got to have some excitement."

"There's plenty of excitement at the Casino, dad."

"Oh, yes—faro excitement; roulette excitement. I never cared for that kind. I've always had the sense to keep out of sure-thing games, even on Wall Street."

"But the people—"

"The people! French apes in fancy waistcoats; Dutch dandies in corsets; women with painted cheeks and pencilled eyebrows whom you're ashamed to look at!"

"Some of them are respectable, dad," laughed Sue.

"One would never suspect it!"

"Oh, yes, dad; some of them belong to the nobility."

"That's no certificate of character—rather the reverse, if one may believe the papers."

"Gossip, dad; nothing but gossip. And you know how you've always hated gossip. You've told us never to believe it."

"It may be; but one could believe anything of most of the women one sees around here. My only chance for amusement is to get up a flirtation with some of them. I don't think it would be difficult—they don't seem a bit shy. Only," he added, with a sigh, "I'm getting too old."

"Yes, dad; I'm afraid you are," agreed Susie. "You wouldn't really enjoy it."

  "'My days are in the yellow leaf;
  The flowers and fruits of love are gone;
  The worm, the canker, and the grief
  Are mine alone!'"

quoted Nell, in a solemn voice.

"Don't you be too sure!" retorted her father, threateningly, wheeling around upon her. "There's no telling what I may be driven to, if I'm kept imprisoned here much longer! 'Though I look old,'—"

"'Yet I am strong and lusty,'" finished Sue. "Of course you are, dad, and you don't look old, either. Why," gazing up at him critically, "you don't look a day over forty!"

"Don't try to bamboozle your Pa, Susie," laughed Rushford. "I can see through you! You'll be trying to make me believe next that you want a stepmother."

"I would if it would make you any happier, dad."

Her father gazed down for an instant into her pseudo-serious face, then caught her in his arms and squeezed her.

"What're you up to?" he demanded. "Trying to make a fool of your old dad? Why, Susie, own up,—you'd scratch out the eyes of the best woman in the world if she dared to look twice at me!"

"Of course I would!" admitted Susie, instantly. "You know as well as I do, dad, that even the best woman in the world isn't good enough for you."

"Let's go across to the other hotel, dad," suggested Nell, with a nonchalance intended to conceal the fact that this was the point she and Susie had been aiming at from the very first.

Her father released Susie and stared at his other daughter in amazement.

"What on earth for?" he demanded.

"Oh, everybody seems to be over there—you've noticed—"

"Yes, I've noticed that it's running over with the rag-tag and bob-tail of all Europe! If you think I'll butt into that Bedlam, my dear child, you're badly mistaken. I'd rather live with the freaks in a museum."

"But it's so quiet here."

"I'm glad of it! Besides, I thought you wanted quiet?"

"Only for your sake—don't you see, we're trying our best to please you.
A moment ago, you said you wanted excitement."

"I do; but it must be excitement with an object. I haven't got any use for the infernal, purposeless chattering I hear all around me every time I go out on the dyke. Damn a man, anyhow, who can't find anything better to do than to run around to summer-resorts and flirt with other men's wives! I tell you, girls, I want to get back to New York!"

"Give us another month, dad!" pleaded Sue, catching his arm again, as he stamped up and down. "You know that you promised to stay with us two months, at the very least. We can't go around without a chaperon."

Her father's face relaxed as he looked down at her, and he smiled grimly.

"So we get down to the real reason, at last, do we?" he queried. "I thought all this solicitude for my health was a trifle unnatural. I'm useful as a chaperon, am I? See here, girls, I can put in my time more profitably at the stock exchange, and have a heap more fun. I'll hire a chaperon for you, or half a dozen, if you want them, and pull out for New York. What do you say? I don't know the first principles of the business, anyway."

"Oh, yes, you do, dad!" protested Susie. "You're a perfectly ideal chaperon."

"I am? The ideal chaperon, then, must be one who never does any chaperoning!"

"That's it, exactly!" cried Nell, clapping her hands delightedly. "How quickly you see things, dad!"

"So that's it!" and he stood for a moment looking darkly at his offspring. "Well, you girls are old enough to take care of yourselves. If you can't, it's high time you were learning how!"

"Oh, we're perfectly able to take care of ourselves," Sue assured him.
"You