drawing-room?" asked Mr. Van Pycke, eying the door with some curiosity. "They're deuced quiet, whoever they are."

Bellows grew very red in the face and resolutely pressed his lips together. He took Mr. Bosworth's overcoat and hat and laid them carefully on the Italian hall seat before venturing to reply.

"You can't hear them for the wind, sir," he said.

"Bellows, I'm catching my death," shivered Mr. Van Pycke. "I feel it coming. Get me something to drink. My God, look at my shoes! They're sopping wet. Bosworth, don't stand there like a clothing store model! I must have dry shoes and stockings. I can't—"

"A clothing store model?" murmured the footman, strangely perturbed.

"I can't run the chance of pneumonia at my age," went on Mr. Van Pycke. "Bellows, do you suppose there's a dry pair of trousers in the house? I'm wet to the knees. I must have shoes. Demmit, Bosworth, do something!"

"My dear father, don't look at me. I'm using my trousers. I dare say Bellows has an extra suit of livery."

"If you wouldn't mind wearing brown trousers with a yellow stripe down the leg, sir," began Bellows.

"Anything," interrupted Mr. Van Pycke, irritably. "But I must also have shoes."

Bellows was thoughtful. "I think, sir, that there is an old pair of riding boots under the stairs, sir. They belonged to poor Mr. Scoville, sir."

"I don't like the idea of wearing other men's shoes—" objected Mr. Van Pycke, with an apprehensive glance at his son.

"I don't think it would matter, sir," said Bellows, affably. "Mr. Scoville hasn't worn them in two years and a half."

Mr. Van Pycke's look of horror caused Bellows to realize.

"I beg pardon, sir. It would be rather grewsome getting into dead men's boots, sir. I never thought—"

"That's undoubtedly what Mr. Van Pycke is contemplating, Bellows," said Bosworth, slyly.

"Sir!" snapped Mr. Van Pycke.

Bellows' face lighted with the joy of a great discovery. "I have it, sir. If you will wait out here just a few moments, sir, I can have trousers, shoes, and stockings. Have you a notion, sir, as to the size?" He stood back and looked Mr. Van Pycke over carefully. "I think I can fix it, sir."

He departed hastily, closing the drawing-room door behind him. Bosworth sat down upon a frail Italian chair and watched his father unbutton his shoes while standing on one foot, propped against the wall.

"Dad, he's going to sandbag one of the guests and take off his clothes," the young man said, smiling broadly. His eyes were quite steady now, and merry.

"Why are you here, sir?" demanded his father, irrelevantly, suddenly remembering that Bosworth had not mentioned his intention to stop at Mrs. Scoville's.

The young man was spared the expediency of a reply by the return of Bellows, with a pair of trousers over his arm, shoes and stockings in his hand. He seemed in some haste to close the drawing-room door behind him.

"You can change in the room at the head of the stairs, sir."

Mr. Van Pycke, in his stocking feet, preceded the footman up the stairs, treading very tenderly, as if in mortal fear of tacks.

Buzzy twirled his thumbs impatiently. He yawned time and again, and more than once cast his glance in the direction of his coat and hat. Never before, in any house, had he been required to sit in a reception hall until the hostess was ready to receive him elsewhere. He could not understand it. Above all places, Mrs. Scoville's, where the freedom of the house was usually extended to all who in friendship came.

From behind closed doors—distant closed doors, by the way—came the sound of laughter and joyous conversation, faintly audible to the young man in the hall.

"I feel like an ass," said young Mr. Van Pycke, probably to the newel post, there being nothing else quite so human in sight. Then he leaned back with a comfortable smile. "I've virtually tried the three eligibles to-night," he mused. "It's a satisfaction to feel that they haven't dismissed me in so many words, and it's a relief to feel that they haven't had the actual opportunity to accept me. I've done my best. The blizzard disposes. I'll see Krosson to-morrow about a place in his offices."

Mr. Van Pycke came down stairs even more tenderly than he went up. There was a look of pain in his face, and he walked slack-kneed, with his toes turned in a trifle. He was wearing a pair of trousers that had been constructed for a much larger man, except as to height.

"The shoes are too small and the trousers too big," he groaned. "I'm leaving my own up there to be dried out. Bellows says they'll be dry in half an hour. I had to put these on for a while. One can't go around with—er—nothing on, so to speak."

"I'm trying to think who's in there that wears trousers of that size—and shape," murmured Bosworth, surveying his father critically.

"Bah!" rasped the uncomfortable Mr. Van Pycke. "Announce us, Bellows."

Bellows opened the drawing-room door, took a quick peep within, and then, standing aside, announced in his most impressive tones:

"Mr. Van Pycke! Mr. Bosworth Van Pycke!"

The two gentlemen stepped into the long, dimly lighted room. Bellows disappeared quickly down the hall. Mr. Van Pycke, his sense of dignity increased by the desire to offset the only too apparent lack of it, advanced into the middle of the room, politely smiling for the benefit of a group of ladies and gentlemen congregated at the lower end, near the windows. So far as he could see, they were engaged in the vulgar occupation known as staring.

Bosworth Van Pycke stopped just inside the door, clapping his hand to his forehead. His mouth fell open and his eyes popped wide with amazement—almost horror. He sat down suddenly in the nearest chair and continued to gaze blankly at the figures down the room. He heard his father say "Good evening" twice, but he heard no response from the group. His abrupt, incontrollable guffaw of understanding and joy caused his now annoyed parent to whirl upon him in surprise.

"Oh, this is rich!" Bosworth was holding his sides, laughing immoderately.

"Bosworth!" hissed his father, with a conscious glance at his feet and legs. "What the devil amuses you?"

For answer his son strode over and clutched him by the arm, turning him around so that he faced the silent, immovable group.

"See that man back there without trousers? The bare-legged, bare-footed chap? Well, dad, you've got on his pants."

"Good God!" gasped Mr. Van Pycke, nervously hunting for the bridge of his nose with his glasses. "Is the poor fellow naked?"

"Half naked, dad, that's all. Look closely!"

"Sh! Demmit all, boy, he'd knock me down! And the ladies! What the devil does he mean, undressing in this bare-faced—"

"Bare-legged, dad." With a fresh laugh he leaned forward and chucked the nearest lady under the chin. As she was standing directly in front of Van Pycke, senior, that gentleman, in some haste, moved back to avoid the retort physical.

"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