sex, standing midway between the infant of either sex and the full-grown male, stronger than child and weaker than man, shares in the child's lack of gustatory taste. You will notice that the very young infant imbibes milk and castor oil with equal unconcern; it really tastes neither of them; it has, in fact, no taste. Taste is largely a matter of comparisons. Our girls grow up fond of sweet things, confections, running through the catalogue of factitious comfits from gum drops up to nougat, and are not even good judges of such things when they graduate as brides. Meantime their brothers have had their run among the fleshpots of Egypt, know the difference between Pommard and Clos de Vougeot, and express preferences as to terrapin à la Philadelphia or à la Baltimore. Now, I said to myself, our brothers are in a loftier and larger career than ours in all ways, and if in all ways, then in taste. You see, I'm nothing if not logical. So I set to work to study out the art and mystery of that crowning effort of civilization, the ideal dinner, with all that the name implies, including of necessity the wines.

"This course of study was not accomplished without severe struggles with all sorts of chicanery and deception. A few tradesmen are honest; but what a vast army of frauds must the learner contend with! The lawyers tell us it is the buyer's business to look out. This may be good law, on the supposition that there is no hereafter for the butchers, greengrocers and wine merchants. On the whole, my experience with the entire college of these people in my researches in the domain of practical gastronomics has caused me to entertain charitable feelings toward plumbers, and even to admit the possibility of a reasonably comfortable future for shoemakers.

And now, not being any longer a chicken-in fact, arrived at that time of life when no women, and very few men, remember or celebrate their birthdays I not only know how to furnish a good dinner, but also how to enjoy one. I am awake to the differences in wines, which are wider and more radical than any unlearned person can conceive of. I have learned to respect the conventional, orderly sequence of wines at a dinner ; gaps can be made in the succession, but no reversal is practicable. A Burgundy with the soup and Amontillado with the game would be a frightful solecism. Without arrogating superior knowledge, how many of our American citizens are in this respect in the outer darkness of ignorance as to such essentials !”

This fact of large and practical culture was in our memory, although debarred as a topic of conversation. The two women besides our hostess

nd the three men were instructed, and therefore

appreciative, and each one was cherishing at that peaceful hour the agreeable recollections of the feast. After the Little Neck clams with a choice Barsac, we had been regaled with a tortue-claire soup. With this, a delicate dry Amontillado, of pale-straw color, cooled to forty-five degrees. To this succeeded Kennebec salmon, with a salad of tomato and cucumber. As a libation to this noble fish, a choice of La Rose Gruaud or a skillfully cooled Ayala champagne of the famou vintage of 1878. Four of us ventured on the innovation of the Ayala-an English fad as to the fish course. Wrinkle, the critic, a devotee of precedent, adhered to claret; and our hostess, sympathizing with his loneliness, suffered the butler to fill her glass with the same. The entrée was Eastern Shore terrapin in Philadelphia style, fresh butter and cream and Madeira wine, the latter adjunct of the stew being of such rich nature that the heat of the brasier had not destroyed its flavor. We were then reminded of the season by a true spring poem in the form of a separate course of asparagus with Hollandaise sauce. This was followed by an aspic de foie gras. During these courses I noticed that even Wrinkle slyly came around to the cool Ayala, and our hostess did not hesitate in being helped to the same.

The roti consisted of snipe nestled in water cresses. With this course only Burgundy is allowable, and the Romanée-Conti which our entertainer furnished forth was so absolutely perfect both as to flavor and temperature that Denslow and I exchanged glances of wondering approval across the table. Denslow, a capitalist, educated, traveled, a logician, an incroyable, yet of most abounding charity, appreciates the best to the fullest extent when he meets it. His glance across the table over the glass of the rich red liquid in his hand expressed volumes.

This anecdote illustrates Denslow: A certain merchant had induced the banker to buy a quantity of commercial paper on representations wholly false, but, being unwritten, not criminally actionable. The signers of the paper absconded and the merchant failed. Denslow sent for him. "No apologies," he said; "no excuses for your lies in connection with this affair; it is for my interest to build you up again, not to crush you. I have my opinion of you, but circumstances compel me to be your friend. Make me a true balance sheet of your condition." The delinquent obeyed, and furnished a sworn statement of assets and liabilities. The banker induced creditors to show forbearance, put the cripple on his feet again, and eventually secured the payment of his own claim in full. Then he cut the man's acquaintance on the street, and refused him further

audiences at his office. "Why," asked an acquaintance of the merchant whom he had deputized to interview Denslow-why this treatment of X-- after he has paid you?" "There are times," was the answer, "when it is politic to be forbearing, even friendly, with a skunk; and there are times when the noisome animal may better be let alone."

Crisp, smooth-shaven, of elegant figure, a perfect dresser, a philosopher as to all his habits, rich without ostentation, critical and thoroughly well informed, Denslow is the hope, and also the despair, of fifty most discerning and appreciative mammas of New York. Barely turned of forty, his unrelinquished bachelorhood entitles him to be styled "still young," and at the Patriarchs' Balls even the maidens of eighteen are glad to accept his attentions, each one that is not in love already believing that she may perhaps land this long-pursued rover.

Coffee was served to us on two little tables placed near each other, so that our grouping permitted a free conversation of the six. Two of the guests I have not yet described, yet you know them well. One English born, yet thoroughly Americanized, is the best exponent of the modern cheerful drama, not burlesque, but healthy, vigorous comedy-such comedy as gives us Lady Teazle and Lydia Languish and Lady Gay Spanker; the other affects, and in her nature is not foreign to, the prevalent lurid drama of French extraction, in which Zola and Dumas explore the turpitudes of the unhappier classes of Paris, and startle society with the revelation of the horrible events that constantly succeed each other in the fermentative growths of the moral sewer. These two accomplished women, therefore, represent two totally different schools and systems; and our hostess was more in sympathy with the priestess of the lurid, having herself achieved her greatest triumphs in the emotional drama in which sin is a chief factor, and having published a magazine article in direct praise of that style of dramatic literature. As Miss Nolan and Mrs. White Keramic, they are sufficiently indicated.

"My husband," said Mrs. Henriot, "writes me from London that the gay season of the capital is just opening. How strange it seems! Ours is closing-that is, as to drawing rooms and the theatre."

"And full time, too," said Miss Nolan. "From September till May or June to travel back and forth across the country, running into hitherto undiscovered cyclones by night and into strange cities by day, makes our summer's rest particularly grateful. Now, suppose the public wanted us all the time!"

"They do," said Wrinkle, "only in the summer they don't know where to put you. If they locate you in the Forest of Arden, a thunderstorm immediately comes on, and scatters the audience. Shakespeare neglected to provide Rosalind with an umbrella and overshoes.

"We have yet," interposed Denslow, "to imitate those wise ancients who laid out summer theatres. The famous Greek plays were all acted outdoors. All over Italy the rustic Romans had theatres constructed in the grass, and the audience sat on turf seats."

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Why, that was a continual series of lawn parties," said Mrs. Keramic. ties," said Mrs. Keramic. "But what became of the voices of the poor artists who were thus obliged to shout into the infinite spaces of the air?"

"Oh," I said, "the voices and the text counted for very little. These ancient and much overpraised plays were little more than pantomime. Behind their absurd masks the performers ranted aud roared, and then went about their business of sticking each other with lath daggers. This was tragedy. Comedy consisted mainly of abductions."

"Mr. Gerry and the Penal Code not having yet been invented," said Wrinkle, "the snatching away of the Sabine girls turned out so well for the Romans that the practice was never so severely reprehended in later times as it should have been."

"Artifice takes the place of force now," said our hostess. "You men don't think it necessary to use the strong arm; you talk us into following the vicissitudes of your fortunes up hill and down. dale till death do us part."

"I have heard the lawyers say something about molliter manus," interposed Miss Nolan, "which means, I believe, that in any case no more force was used than absolutely necessary. In the social interchanges of our time it is hard to say which sex abducts the other. Not on the stage, I mean, but in real life. The stage preserves the old-fashioned, conventional type of lovemaking. The man wooes; the girl is wooed. He urges and pleads; she coyly resists, defends herself half heartily, feebly, without any real purpose of resistance then surrenders. This is wholesome lovemaking. The breath of the morning breeze, fresh from the woods and the meadows, permeates it. But in real life a man, perhaps some simpleton with a title, appears on the scene, and straightway the mammas of fifty girls set out to lasso him and drag him into the corral of matrimony. That is why I maintain that the stage is to-day the conservator of society, in that it sets up a system of models, classical examples of what

should be derived from the best types of a past day, even if that past day were so recent as yesterday."

"What do you say to that?" asked Denslow, turning to our hostess.

"Oh," said she, laughing, "this is not a polemic arena; "and any differences of opinion between Miss Nolan and myself must be of necessity merely Pickwickian and professional. We are on opposite sides, you know; she represents classic comedy, which has no other object than to amuse; I aim to represent the emotional drama, which deals in earthquakes, shatters long-standing ideals, runs like swollen mountain torrents through Alpine villages, destroying, rending, swallowing up, obliterating. As the heroine, I wade through scenes of mortal misery during two hours and a half, and my aim is to bring my audiences as near to the gulf of dolorous sighs and anguish as possible without plunging them into its gloomy depths forever. It is my highest triumph when, emerging from the playhouse, they come into the sunlight if it is a case of matinée, or into the glitter of a city street at night, and breathe a long sigh of relief and say,

Thank God, the world of humanity

their studies to health; you cultivate only morbid pathology.""

"You have shown us," said I, "that the truth of this remark does not displease you. I fancy that Mrs. Keramic is somewhat disposed to agree with you. How is that?" I continued, leaning toward that lady, whose gaze was fixed on the last glow of the sun on a distant peak of the Rockland Highlands. The lady turned.

"You know, or perhaps you don't know, that I have never written essays on the details of the dramatic art. In that respect I am behind the

moves on hopefully! You see, in one sense I am the priestess of despair. The authors whose creations I portray seem to rule with broken sceptres unruly kingdoms of desire. Virtue is continually being cast down, and yet vice, while technically triumphant, is not happy nor sure of its position. Happy homes, cheerful matrons ripening in the rays of their children's affections, well-to-do citizens prosperous in affairs, and with their circulating fluids enriched by good roast and boiled, and sound claret; dutiful daughters growing up to useful professions and happy marriages-these are not in my professional line. All the same, Miss Nolan and I can equally admire them. A doctor once said to me, 'Some artists confine

remainder of the party with the exception of Mr. Denslow, and even he writes upon finance, and for all I know may have one or more manuscript plays in his desk at home."

"I assure you, no, madam," said the banker; "my lapses from reason have never gone to that extent."

"I must believe you," she replied, "and yet so many clever men confide in me and say, 'Now, my dear Mrs. Keramic, I have a play at home that I think you could do full justice to. I have never even shown it to a manager or an actor. Would you kindly read it and give me your unbiased opinion of it? Sometimes I can't help taking the manuscript in, because it is sent to me ; in this case I keep it for a fortnight and then return it, saying that my engagements are for several years ahead on other less meritorious works. Ananias and Sapphira,' you say. Well, Ananias only said. 'For so much,' and Sapphira only said, 'I agree with the gentleman who has just spoken.' We must be polite, you know, even when we dash the hopes of amateur writers, who have no business to exist. Do we want to buy our morning rolls from amateur breadmakers, or our clothes from amateur dressmakers? I trow not.

"Now, as to this feature of emotionalism, you know I like to portray sinners who come to a bad

end. That is the chief object of a sinner's existence. What else is he or she here for? And then sin is often interesting; and at the same time the bad ending of the sinner is natural-in fact, quite necessary, whether it is to conform to fact or to point a moral. Sin is the opposite of rectitude, and rectitude is from rectus, a straight line which is the shortest distance between any two points. You set out from A to go to B, and there is only one straight line between them; that is rectitude, and it is perfectly uninteresting. There are fifty million crooked lines that can start from A and end in B, and many of them are loaded down with interesting material. Primrose paths of dalliance,' Shakespeare calls them. Many of them fail to connect with B at all. They start from A, and end nowhere, or in profound depths of misery.

"Such crooked lines make up the drama which the public likes, because it appeals to their sensibilities. There isn't much in it to laugh at; we laugh at blunders and predicaments, but not so much at the results of sinful acts. There is no comedy in the prison or the electric chair, nor in the downfalls, the débâcles, of men and women, either alone, in couples or in families. Sometimes there are startling and sudden surprises, as in the play by Dumas in which I portrayed the young wife who made up a false story of her own guilt in order to teach her husband a lesson and check his lawless rovings.

"You, my dear Miss Nolan," she continued, turning to the exponent of refined comedy, "are engaged in a most admirable task-that of representing society in an amusing aspect; but for all that, the lurid drama, that portrays human frailties, is the drama of the present, and also of the future. It takes up every day the form and fashion of the time, and puts it in evidence on the stage. And there will never be any lack of material. See how naughty the world is; and how much naughtier it must be as to circumstances which we don't know anything about. If we see so much, how much must there be which we don't see! You think the lurid dramatist invents some things. Not at all. He merely takes

such things for granted. Neither Dumas nor Zola nor Balzac ever got half the truth-not the millionth part, even.

"To cut it short, your comedy, which some people call the 'genteel comedy,' is mainly ideal; while our lurid drama, full of sin and wickedness, is the truly real, and the more interesting. Your comedy always ends too happily. Sometimes the heroes and heroines marry and live happily forever after.' Who does that in real life? When married people don't throw plates at each other they become eventually a couple of coolly minded friends, living on mutual sufferance in the same house; if wealth has greatly increased, echoing the remark of Mrs. Marshall O. Roberts, of New York, who told a friend from the country, when gazing with envy on Mrs. Roberts's retinue of domestic servants, My dear, I'm engaged in keeping an Irish boarding house! If you were to keep tab of the legal separations and divorces that take place in our higher circles you would be fairly paralyzed with astonishment at the end of a year or two. But they slip out of your memory. Now, our dear Mrs. Henriot and her charming husband happen to be an exception-one of these delightful exceptions that prove the rule. Their felicity is a proverb. No French dramatist could construct a scheme of lurid interest out of their union."

"After all," said Wrinkle, "don't we come back at last with Shakespeare to this, that the stage has for its object, first, last and all the time, to hold the mirror up to nature? In so doing we reflect all sorts of social landscapes, the displeasing as well as the pleasing; but whether they are one or the other doesn't matter so long as the image on the mirror is true, and free from distortion."

"Let it be the summation of the whole matter," said the banker, as we rose to bid good night to our hostess, "that whatever is is right, and that the actors in the mimic world make no mistake when they copy the actors of the great world, in whatever they see them doing. This is the be-all and the end-all of the drama." And with this we parted.