understand?" he inquired.

"Frankly, I do not altogether. I--I thought they'd like it."

"Of course you did, my dear fellow; there's the ghastly humor of it;
the dire tragedy, rather." As he spoke he struck his closed hand
gently but firmly on the table, and regarded the reporter with the
compressed lips of one who is about to vent a long pent-up grievance.

"He was in four clubs; I looked him up," Harrington still protested in
dazed condition.

"And they seemed to you his chief title to distinction? You thought
they did him honor? He would have writhed in his grave, as Miss
Mayberry said. Like it? When the cheap jack or the social climber
dies, he may like it, but not the gentleman or lady. Leading society
girl? Why, every shop-girl who commits suicide is immortalized in the
daily press as 'a leading society girl,' and every deceased Tom, Dick,
or Harry has become a 'well-known club man.' It has added a new terror
to death. Thank God, my friends will be spared!"

Harrington felt of his chin. "You object to the promiscuity of it, so
to speak. It's because everybody is included?"

"No, man, to the fundamental indignity of it. To the baseness of the
metal which the press glories in using for a social crown."

Harrington drew himself up a little. "If the press does it, it's
because most people like it and regard it as a tribute."