nine. The dinner was the regulation heavy, expensive New York meal,
eaten to the accompaniment of the same noisy mirth I have already
described. Afterward the host conducted the men to his "den," a
luxurious paneled library filled with rare prints, and we listened for
an hour to the jokes and anecdotes of a semiprofessional jester who took
it on himself to act as the life of the party. It was after eleven
o'clock when we rejoined the ladies, but the evening apparently had only
just begun; the serious business of the day--bridge--was at hand. But
in those days my wife and I did not play bridge; and as there was
nothing else for us to do we retired, after a polite interval, to our
apartments.

While getting ready for the night we shouted cheerfully to one another
through the open doors of the bathroom and, I remember, became quite
jolly; but when my wife had gone to bed and I tried to close the blinds
I discovered that there were none. Now neither of us had acquired the
art of sleeping after daylight unless the daylight was excluded. With
grave apprehension I arranged a series of makeshift screens and
extinguished the lights, wandering round the room and turning off the
key of each one separately, since the architect had apparently forgotten
to put in a central switch.

If there had been no servants in evidence when we wanted them before
dinner, no such complaint could be entered now. There seemed to be a
bowling party going on upstairs. We could also hear plainly the rattle
of dishes and a lively interchange of informalities from the kitchen end
of the establishment. We lay awake tensely. Shortly after one o'clock
these particular sounds died away, but there was a steady tramp of feet
over our heads until three. About this hour, also, the bridge party
broke up and the guests came upstairs.