PTOMAINE STREET

THE TALE OF WARBLE PETTICOAT

THIRD IMPRESSION PTOMAINE STREET

THE TALE OF WARBLE PETTICOAT

BY

CAROLYN WELLS [BLANK PAGE] TO ROBERTA WOLF BUEHLER MY BELOVED FRIENDFOREWORD TO A FOOLISH BOOK

 A certain Poet once opined That life is earnest, life is real; But some are of a different mind, And turn to hear the Cap-bells peal. Oft in this Vale of Smiles I've found Foolishness makes the world go round. 

 Ecclesiastes, Solomon, And lots of those who've passed before us, Denounced all foolishness and fun, Not so the gay and blithesome Horace; And Shakespeare's Jaques, somewhat hotly, Declared the only wear is Motley!

 We mortals, fools are said to be; And doesn't this seem rather nice? I learn, on good authority, That Fools inhabit Paradise! Honored by kings they've always been; And--you know where Fools may rush in. 

 And so, with confidence unshaken, In Cap and Bells, I strike the trail. I know just how, because I've taken A Correspondence Course by mail. I find the Foolish life's less trouble Than Higher, Strenuous or Double. Dear Reader, small the boon I ask, -- Your gentle smile, to egg my wit on; Lest people deem my earnest task Not worth the paper it is writ on. Well, at white paper's present worth, That _would_ be rather high-priced mirth!

 I hope you think my lines are bright, I hope you trow my jests are clever; If you approve of what I write Then you and I are friends forever. But if you say my stuff is rotten, You are forgiven and forgotten. 

 Though, as the old hymn runs, I may not Sing like the angels, speak like Paul; Though on a golden lyre I play not, As David played before King Saul; Yet I consider this production A gem of verbalesque construction. 

 So, what your calling, or your bent, If clergy or if laity, Fall into line. I'll be content And plume me on my gayety, If of the human file and rank I can make nine-tenths smile, --and thank. [Blank Page] PTOMAINE STREET

CHAPTER I

On a Pittsburgh block, where three generations ago might have been heardIndian war-whoops--yes, and the next generation wore hoops, too--a girlchild stood, in evident relief, far below the murky gray of the Pittsburghsky. 

She couldn't see an Indian, not even a cigar store one, and she wouldn'thave noticed him anyway, for she was shaking with laughter. 

A breeze, which had hurried across from New York for the purpose, blew herhat off, but she recked not, and only tautened her hair ribbon with aninvoluntary jerk just in time to prevent that going too. 

A girl on a Pittsburgh block; bibulous, plastic, young; drinking the air ingreat gulps, as she would later drink life. 

It is Warble Mildew, expelled from Public School, and carolling withlaughter. 

She had only attended for four weeks and they had been altogether wasted. In her class there were several better girls, many brighter, one prettier, but none fatter. The schoolgirls marveled at the fatness of her legs when, skirts well tucked up, they all waded in the brook. Every cell of her bodywas plump and she had dimples in her wrists. 

And cheeks, like:

 A satin pincushion pink, Before rude pins have touched it. 

Her eyes were of the lagoon blue found in picture postcards of Venice andher hair was a curly yellow brush-heap. Sunning over with curls--you know, sort of ringolets. 

In fact, Warble was not unlike one of those Kewpie things, only she wasmore dressed. 

 * * * * *

Expelled!

That's the way things were to come to Warble all her life. Fate laid on inbroad strokes--in great splashes--in slathers. 

Expelled! And she had scarce dared hope for such a thing. 

 * * * * *

To sound the humor of Warble. 

She hated school. Books, restraint, routine, scratching slate pencils, gumunder desks, smells--all the set up palette of the schoolroom was not toher a happy vehicle of self-expression. 

Often, in hope of being sent home, she had let a rosy tongue-tip protrudefrom screwed up red lips at teacher, but it had gone unpunished. 

And now--

Now, rocking in triumphant, glorious mirth, her plump shoulders hunched invery ecstasy, the child was on the peak!

Expelled! Oh, gee!

And all because she had put a caterpillar down Pearl Jane Tuttle's back. One little, measly caterpillar. 

Pearl Jane had sat right in front of her. 

A loose neckband round a scrawny neck. 

And when Pearl Jane wiggled, a space of neck between two thin, tight blackpigtails--a consequent safe-deposit that was fairly crying out to havesomething dropped down it. 

A caterpillar mooching along the schoolroom aisle--clearly sent byProvidence. 

Helpless in the grip of an irresistible subconscious complex, Warble scoopsup the caterpillar and in an instant has fed him into the gaping maw at theback of that loose gingham neckband. 

Gr-r-r-r-rh!

 * * * * *

That, then, is why Warble stood in such evident relief on the Pittsburghblock. 

Expelled! The world was hers!

It had always been hers, to be sure, but it was now getting bigger and morehers every minute. 

The very first day she went to school, a little boy said to her:

"Do you like me?"

"No, " said Warble. 

The little boy gave her all his candy and his red balloon. 

So you see, she had a way--and got away with it. 

 * * * * *

Warble was an orphan. She had a paprika-seasoned sister, married to achiropodist, in Oshkosh. But for all that, she planned to earn her ownliving. 

And she had an ambition. At present beyond her grasp, yet so sure was sheof its ultimate attainment, that she shaped her entire cosmic consciousnesstoward that end. Her ambition was not unique, perhaps not unattainable. Ithad been achieved by others with seemingly little effort and less skill;and though as yet, merely a radiant hope, Warble was determined that someday she would gain her goal. 

Her ambition was to get married. Her sister had; her mother had; shepolitely assumed her grandmother had. 

She would. 

Often she imagined herself the heroine of delightful scenes she watchedat the cinema. She loved the slow unwinding of the story on the screen, butwhen engaged with her imagination she hurried it on in haste to reach thefinal close-up. 

 * * * * *

It was at no one's advice, but because of her own inner yearnings thatWarble took a job as waitress in a Bairns' Restaurant. 

She reveled in the white tiles, the white gloss paint, the eternalclearing-up and the clatter of flatware. She loved the flatware--it alwaysmade her think of a wedding--sometimes of her own. 

She adored the white-capped King Alfred baking his cakes in the window, butmerely as a fixture, as she adored the mute stacks of clean plates and thepiles of pathetic little serviettes. 

In a more intimate and personal way she adored the pork and beans, theham and eggs, the corned beef and cabbage, and--importantly--the gentle, easy-going puddings and cup custards. These things delighted her soul anddimpled her body. 

She was proud of her fellow-waitresses, proud of their aspirations (thesame as her own). 

Having exceptional opportunity, Warble learned much of culinary art andarchitecture, at least she became grounded in elementary alimentaryscience. 

She had little notebooks filled with rules for Parisian pastry, Hindurecipes for curry; foreign dishes with modern American improvements. 

Joyously she learned to make custard pie. This, as the tumultous futureproved, was indicative. 

Only the little smiling gods of circumstance, wickedly winking at oneanother, knew that when Warble whipped cream and beat eggs, she laid thecorner stone of a waiting Destiny, known as yet but to the blinking starsabove the murky Pittsburgh sky. 

She was extravagant as to shoes and diet; and, on the whole, she felt thatshe was living. 

She was not mistaken. 

She went to dances, but though sometimes she toddled a bit, mostly she satout or tucked in. 

During her three years as a waitress several customers looked at her withinterest though without much principle. 

The president of a well-known bank, the proprietor of a folding-bedconcern, a retired plumber, a Divinity student and a ticket-chopper. 

None of these made her bat an eyelash. 

For months no male came up for air. Then, the restaurant door swung back onits noiseless check and spring, and in walked Big Bill Petticoat. 

CHAPTER II

The Petticoats were one of the oldest and pride-fullest of New Englandfamilies. So that settles the status of the Petticoats. A couple of themcame over in the _Mayflower_, with the highboys and cradles and things, andthey founded the branch of Connecticut Petticoats--than which, of course, there is nothing more so. 

Of course, the Petticoats were not in the very upper circles of society, not in the Dress Circle, so to speak, but they formed a very necessaryfoundation, they stood for propriety and decency, and the Petticoats werestiff enough to stand alone. 

Another fine old New England family, the Cottons. 

Intermarriage linked the two, and the Cotton-Petticoats crowded allother ancient and honorable names off the map of Connecticut and noddedcondescendingly to the Saltonwells and Hallistalls. Abbotts and Cabotstried to patronize them, but the plain unruffled Cotton-Petticoats heldtheir peace and their position. 

The present scion, Dr. Petticoat, was called Big Bill, not because of hisname or stature, but because of the size of his bills. He presented themquarterly, and though his medicine was optional--the patient could takeit or leave it--the bills had to be paid. 

Wherefore Dr. Petticoat was at the head of his profession financially. Alsoby reputation and achievement, for he had the big idea. 

He was a specialist, and, better yet, a specialist in Ptomaine Poisoning. 

Rigidly did he adhere to his chosen line, never swerving to right or left. People might die on one side of him from water on the brain and on theother side from water on the palate, not a prescription could they get outof Big Bill Petticoat unless they could put up unmistakable symptoms ofptomaine poisoning. 

And he was famous. People brought their ptomaines to him from the farplaces, his patients included the idlest rich, the bloatedest aristocrats, the most profitable of the profiteers. His Big Bill system worked well, andhe was rich beyond the most Freudian dreams of avarice. 

As to appearance, Petticoat was very pretty, with that fresh rosy beautythat is so attractive. His walnut hair was fine and silky, but a permanentwave made it fuzz forth in a bushy crinkle that was distractingly lovely. His tweezed eyebrows were arched to a perfect span and his finger nailsshowed a piano polish. 

His features were cold-chiseled and his coloring was exquisite. Infact, his coloring was too good to be true, and no wonder, for it came outof a very modern and up-to-date six-cylinder makeup box. 

His lips looked as if they were used to giving orders in restaurants, andhe wore clothes which you could never quite forget. 

Warble edged toward the stranger, and murmured nothing in particular, butsomehow he drifted into the last and only vacant seat at her table. 

She whisked him a 2 x 2 napkin, dumped a clatter of flatware at him, andstood, awaiting his order. 

The pause becoming lengthy, she murmured with her engaging smile, "Whatchawant to eat?"

"Pleased to eat you, " he responded, looking at her as though she was anagreeable discovery. 

Small wonder, for Warble was so peachy and creamy, so sweet and delectablethat she was a far more appetizing sight than most viands are. She smiledagain--engagingly this time, too. 

Thus in the Painted Vale of Huneker, Vamp and Victim beguiled the hours. Thus, and not in treacled cadences, intrigued Mariar and Sir Thomas in theback alley. 

"Do you like it here?" asked the doctor. 

"Yop. But sometimes I feel wasted--"

"You don't look wasted--" "No--" after a hasty glance in the wall mirror. 

"Don't you get sick of the sight of food?"

"Here, oh, no! I don't know any lovelier sight than our kitchens--yes, yes, sir, I'll get your pied frotatoes at oneth. "

When Warble was a bit frustrated or embarrassed, she often inverted herinitials and lisped. It was one of her ways. 

The other clients at her table had no intention of being neglected whiletheir Pickfordian waitress smiled engagingly on a newcomer. 

It was the iceman who had hollered. He seemed to be merely a red-facedinanimate object, that worked by strange and compound levers. 

Next him was a hat-check girl, a queenly person who communed with somethingset in the lid of her vanity case, and fed on chicken à la king. 

Then there was a newsboy, whose all-observant eyes darted about everywhere, the while he absorbed baked beans and ketchup. 

An old maid shopper. She merely brooded over her worn and pencil-scoredmemorandum, and muttered of fringe and buttons as she spilled tea on hersamples of Navy blue foulard. 

A blind man. Of no interest save that he had a calm and gentle demeanorand was the only one who didn't spill things. His face wore a grieved butresigned look, as if something had died in his scrambled eggs. The iceman, who had the hard, set jaw of a prize fighter was successfully eating steak, and he welcomed the incoming fried potatoes, as one greets a new instalmentof a serial. 

It was a fat and pink and lovely Warble who at last trotted back withPetticoat's order. 

The great specialist had an unbridled passion for pie, and throwingrestraint to the winds he had ordered three kinds. The wedgesWarble brought were the very widest she could wheedle from the headpie-cutter--and Warble was some wheedler, especially when she coaxedprettily for a big pieth of cuthtard. 

Petticoat looked at her again as she came, pie-laden. 

Her cap was a bit askew, but her eyes weren't. In her white linen dress andapron and white cap, her little pink face looked to Petticoat's appraisingglance like a postage stamp on an expanse of white linen envelope. 

Little did he think, as he took his custard pie that he was about to puthis foot in it. Yet he did. 

"May I see you again sometime?" he said, ignoring the hat-check girl'sogling and the iceman's cold stare. 

Warble made a face at him. It was one of her ways. 

"What's your address?" he asked. "You can ask the Boss--if you really wantto know. "

"Want to know! Say, you waitress!"

Of the love-making of Warble and Big Bill Petticoat there is nothing to bereported which may not be read in any Satevepost serial, which may not beheard at any summer resort, in any winter garden. They were zoology andhistory. Their speech was free silver and their silence was golden. 

It was a non-stop courtship. All the plump beauty of youth and all theassured complacence of a well-to-do married man kept them up in the air. 

Petticoat wasn't a married man, but he had their technique. 

They took a walk, and followed a roundabout way. Then they sat on a bank, and his arm followed a roundabout way. 

She seemed more young and tender than ever, in a simple white muslin frockand blue sash. Her broad-leafed hat was decked with a few pink roses, androll-top white socks added a good deal to the picture. 

Petticoat was charmed. 

"Golly, but I love you, Warble!" he cried. 

She did not answer, but she touched the upper edge of the wallet in hisbreast pocket with an exploring gesture. 

"You think I'm too darn aesthetic! Well, you're not, and so we ought tomate. We're complementary to one another, like air and sunshine or lightand shade. "

"Or pork and beans, or pie and cheese. "

"Yes, or like stout and porter--I'll be the porter, oh--what's the use oftalking? Let my lips talk to you!"

He kissed her cheek, imprinting thereon a Cupid's bow, by reason of his ownaddiction to the lipstick. 

Warble rubbed it off with the back of her hand, and said, "Oh, pleathe--pleathe. "

She wondered if she ought to have said thank you, but it was only adrifting thought and she turned the other cheek. Then she smiled herengaging smile and they were engaged. 

Later in the game, she said, with pretty diffidence, "I would like to theeButterfly Thenter. " And she blushed like the inside of those pink meatmelons. 

"I knew it!" and Petticoat produced a pile of Sunday Picture Supplements. 

Her cheek nested in his permanent wave, Warble studied the pictures. 

They were the last word in artistic architecture. Truly, Butterfly Center, where Petticoat lived, was a veritable Utopia, Arcadia, Spotless Town andHappy Valley all rolled into one. Broad streets, arching trees, sublimatedhouses, glorified shops--it seemed to Warble like a flitter-work Christmascard from the drug-store. 

"How'd you like to scoot up there with me in a fast aeroplane?" he jolliedher. 

"It might be--a lark--" she dubioused. 

"But here's the picture!" and proudly he exhibited a full length view ofhis own home. 

"Ptomaine Haul, " he exploited, proudly. "Built every inch of it from thebusy little ptomaines. Coral insects nothing on that, eh? And here's thesort of people I practice on. Old Leathersham, now--he has a corkingchâteau--French Renaissance. And Mrs. Charity Givens--she has a Georgianshack. And, oh, yes, here's Iva Payne. She's one of my most profitablepatients--sick all the time. "

Warble studied the pictures. 

"What expensive people, " she said, "dear--so dear. "

"Yes, great people. You'd love 'em. They're just layin' for you. Come on, Warble, will you?"

"Yop, " she murmured, from his coat pocket, "Sweet, so sweet. "

CHAPTER III

Among the rolling stock of a great railroad, a moving mass of steel. A softsludge as it came noiselessly to rest beneath the glazed chintz awnings ofthe Butterfly Center station. 

A faint scent of chypre from Petticoat's cigarette as he alit. 

From his private train, which had slithered across the intervening spacesand slid into its moorings as butter slides from a hot plate. 

It is September, cool, green and well-sprinkled. 

The obviously important man was followed by a yellow-topped, rose-cheekedgirl, whose eyes were all blue and a yard wide as she looked about. 

About what?

About eighteen. 

They were Dr. Big Bill Petticoat and his bride, Warble. 

They had been married and had spent their honeymoon in riotous loving. 

It had been transforming. Warble had been frightened to discover how hungryshe could be even on a wedding trip. 

Bill had mused to himself; what's the difference between an optimist and apessimist? One honeymoon. And now they had reached their home town. Peoplewere not altogether new to Warble. She had seen them before. But these wereher own people, to bathe and encourage and adorn--and, they didn't seem toneed it. 

They distressed her. They were so smart. She had always held that there isno style in America, no chic effects out of Paris. 

But here on the terrace of the simple little hewn stone station were hordesof men and women who seemed to be, mentally, morally and physically, literally butterflies. 

"Isn't there any way of waking them up?" she begged of Petticoat, grabbinghis arm and shaking him. 

"These guys? Wake 'em up? What for? They're happy. "

"But they're so smug--no, that isn't what I mean. They're sostick-in-the-mud. "

"Look here, Warble, you want to get over your fool idea that because awoman is slender she isn't adorable. These folks are up to date, snuff andmischief. "

"I know, that's what's biting me. Life seems so hard for them. "

"Oh, they don't mind it. Now you must meet the bunch. They're all down hereto meet their husbands or something just as good. Now you behave yourself. "

"Yop. "

She had a grip on herself. She was ready to kiss and be friends with themall. But she was scared at the rackety pack who ballyhooed like ConeyIsland and surged down upon her like a Niagara Falls. 

She had the impression that all the men had soft voices, large, embracingarms, gimlet eyes and bored, impersonal smiles. She knew they were takingher in. Their pleasant hoots and yells of greeting overcame her. 

"Oh, pleathe--pleathe, " she lisped. 

In her fresh frilled dimity and soft sash of baby-blue Surah, her rolledwhite socks disclosing but a few tantalizing inches of seashell-pink calf, Warble stood, eyes cast down, a pretty, foolish thing, As soft as young, As gay as soft, and, to a man, the male population of Butterfly Center fell for her. 

Not so the remainder of the citizens. 

One of the men was yelling at Petticoat:

"Hop into my car, Bill, Don't see yours--I'll tote the bride-person you'vegot there--with joy and gladness. " Warble looked at the yeller. 

"Can't quite place me, chick, can you?" he grinned at her. "Well I'm onlyold Goldwin Leathersham--no use for me in the world but to spend money. Want me to spend some on you? Here's my old thing--step up here, Marigold, and be introduced. She's really nicer than she looks, Mrs. Petticoat. "

"Indeed I'm not, " Marigold Leathersham cried gaily, "I couldn't be--nobodycould be!"

She came running--a beautiful, slim young woman, with a wealth of expensivelooking gold hair, white and gold teeth that broke into a lavish smile. Hervoice was rich and though she looked above, away from and through Warble, yet she saw her. 

"So glad to welcome you, you pretty baby, " she chirruped. "You're going tolove us all, aren't you?"

"Yop, " said Warble, and smiled her engaging smile. 

"You bet she'll love us, " declared Leathersham, "she'll make the world goround! Hello, Little One, " he turned to pat the cheek of a white-haired, red-faced old lady, who hawk-eyed and hawk-nosed, stood by, listening in. This, Mrs. Petticoat, is our Lady Bountiful, Mrs. Charity Givens--noted forher generosity. She ostentatiously heads all Donation Lists, and she'sgoing to start a rest cure where your husband's unsuccessful cases may diein peace. And here's one of the cases. Hello, Iva Payne!"

"Hello, " languidly responded a girl like a long pale lily--a Burne-Jonestype, who sometimes carried around a small stained-glass window to rest herhead against. 

"Are you really Bill's wife?" she asked, a little disinterestedly, ofWarble. 

"Yop, " said Warble, and made a face at her. 

"How quaint, " said Iva. 

"Whoopee, Baby! Here we are, " and Petticoat rescued his bride from themiddle of a crowd and yanked her toward his car. 

The car was a museum piece, and as Warble caromed into its cushions shefelt that her lines had fallen in pleasant places. 

That was the way Fate came to Warble. In big fat chunks, in slathers. Unexpected, sudden, inescapable--that's Fate all over. 

"I shall like Mr. Leathersham--I shall call him Goldie. They're allnice and friendly--the men. But this town! Oh, my Heavens! This JewelCasket--this Treasure Table! I can't live through it! This Floating Islandof a Tipsy Charlotte!" Her husband nudged her. "You look like you had apain, " he said; "Scared? I don't expect you to fit in at first. You have toget eased into things. It's different from Pittsburgh. But you'll come tolike it--love is so free here, and the smartest people on earth. "

She winked at him. "I love you for your misunderstanding. I'm justdog-tired. And too many chocolates. Give me a rest, dear. I'm all in fromwear sheeriness. "

She laid her feet in his lap and snuggled into the corner of thepearl-colored upholstery. 

She was ready for her new home, beautiful, celebrated Ptomaine Haul. Petticoat told her that his mother had been living with him, but had fledincontinently on hearing a description of Warble. 

The bride chuckled and smiled engagingly as the car slithered round acorner and stopped under the _porte cochère_ of a great house set in themidst of a landscape. 

Neo-Colonial, of a purity unsurpassed by the Colonists themselves. 

A park stretching in front; gardens at the back; steps up to a great porch, and a front door copied from the Frary house in Old Deerfield. 

A great hall--at its back twin halves of a perfect staircase. To the right, a charming morning room, where Petticoat led his bride. 

"You like it? It's not inharmonious. I left it as it is--in case you careto rebuild or redecorate. "

"It's a sweet home--" she was touched by his indifference. "So artistic. "

Petticoat winced, but he was a polite chap, and he only said, carelessly, "Yes, home is where the art is, " and let it go at that. 

In the hall and the great library she was conscious of vastness andmagnificent distances, but, she thought, if necessary, I can use rollerskates. 

As she followed Petticoat and the current shift of servants upstairs, shequavered to herself like the fat little gods of the hearth. 

She took her husband into her arms, and felt that at last she had realizedher one time dreams of the moving pictures, ay, even to the final close-up. 

What mattered, so long as she could paw at the satin back of his shirt, andadmire his rich and expensive clothing. 

"Dear--so dear--" she murmured. 

CHAPTER IV

"The Leathershams are giving a ball for us to-night, " Petticoat said, casually, as he powdered his nose in the recesses of his triplicate mirror. 

"A ball?"

"Oh, I don't mean a dance--I mean--er--well, what you'd call a sociable, Isuppose. "

"Oh, ain't we got fun!"

"And, I say, Warble, I've got to chase a patient now; can you hike about abit by yourself?"

"Course I can. Who's your patient?"

"Avery Goodman--the rector of St. Judas' church. He will eat terrapin madeout of--you know what. And so, he's all tied up in knots with ptomainepoisoning and I've got to straighten him out. It means a lot to us, youknow. "

"I know; skittle. "

Left alone, Warble proceeded systematically to examine the interior ofPtomaine Haul. She gazed about her own bedroom and a small part ofits exquisite beauty dawned upon her. It was an exact copy of MarieAntoinette's and the delicately carved furniture and pale blue upholsteryand hangings harmonized with the painted domed ceiling and paneled walls. 

The dressing table bore beautiful appointments of ivory, as solid asWarble's own dome and from the Cupid-held canopy over the bed to theembroidered satin foot-cushions, it was top hole. 

The scent was of French powders, perfumes and essences and sachets, such asWarble had not smelled since before the war. 

"Can you beat it, " she groaned. "How can I live with doodads like this?"She saw the furniture as a circle of hungry restaurant customers ready toeat her up. She kicked the dozen lace pillows off the head of the bed. 

"No utility anywhere, " she cried. "Everything futile, inutile, brutal! Ihate it! I hate it! Why did I ever--"

And then she remembered she was a Petticoat now, a lace, frilledPetticoat--not one of those that Oliver Herford so pathetically dubbed "theshort and simple flannels of the poor. "

Yes, she was now a Petticoat--one of the aristocratic Cotton-Petticoats, washable, to be sure, but a dressy Frenchy Petticoat, and as such she musttake her place on the family clothesline. 

She drifted from oriel window to casement, and on to a great becurtainedand becushioned bay, and looked out on the outlook. 

She saw gardens like the Tuileries and Tuilerums, soft, shining pools, little skittering fountains, marble Cupids and gay-tinted flowers. This wasthe scene for her to look down upon and live up to. 

"I mustn't! I mustn't! I'm nervous this afternoon! Am I sick?...... GoodLord, I hope it isn't that! Not now! I'd hate it--I'd be scared to death!Some day--but, please, kind Fate, not now! I don't want to go down now withptomaine poisoning! Not till after I've had my dinner! I'm going out for awalk. "

When Warble had plodded along for six hours, she had pretty well done upthe town. 

Ptomaine Street, which took its name from her husband's own residence, wasa wide, leafy avenue with a double row of fine old trees on each side. Theywere Lebbek trees, and the whole arrangement was patterned after the avenuewhich Josephine built for Napoleon, out to the Mena House. 

She passed the homes of the most respectable citizens. Often they were setback from the road, and the box hedges or tall iron fences preventedher from seeing the houses. But she saw enough and sped on to the moreinteresting business and shopping section of Butterfly Center. 

She passed Ariel Inn, the hotel being like a Swiss Chalet, perched on someconvenient rocks that rose to a height above street level. A few fairlynimble chamois were leaping over these rocks and Warble heard a fairy-likechime of bells as afternoon tea was announced. 

A man in an artist's smock sauntered across the street. A palette on onethumb, he scratched his chin with the other. A hearse, its long box filledwith somebody, crawled down the block. A dainty Sedan with a woman'sidle face at its window wafted by. From a Greek Temple came the sound ofInterpretative Dancing, and the applause of perfunctory hands. 

She wanted to elope. Her own ideas of utility, efficiency, and economy werebeing shattered--broken in pieces like a potter's vessel. Her sense ofproportion, her instinct for relative values, her abhorrence of wastemotion, her inborn system and method, all were swept away as a thief inthe night. Could she reform this giddy whirl? Could she bring chaos out ofcosmos? Was her own ego sufficient to egg her on in her chosen work?

She haed her doots. 

She maundered down the street on one side--back on the other. 

Dudie's Drug-store was like unto a Turkish Mosque. Minaret and pinnaret, battlement and shuttle-door, it was a perfect drug-store, nobly planned. The long flight of steps leading up to its ptortal was a masterpiece in thestep line. 

Inside, the Soda Pagoda was a joy of temple bells and soft, sweet drinks, while at the prescription counter, the line formed on the right, to get Dr. Petticoat's prescriptions filled for their ptomaines. 

A Moldavian Incense Shop was the barber's; a half-timbered house soldEnglish-built clothes; a brick affair of Georgian influences and splendidlines, housed the hardware needed by the Butterflies, and the milliner'swas a replica of the pyramid of Cestus. 

The bank was the Vatican, with Swiss guards in the doorway. 

Perpetual waste motion! In all the town not one building that connoted toWarble the apotheosis of efficiency shown by the King Alfred tossing cakesin the window of Bairns' Restaurant. Not a dozen buildings that evensuggested use in addition to their beauty. 

And the street was cluttered with trees in tubs, window boxes, suddenlittle fountains or statues; gilded wicker birdcages on tall poles--songsissuing therefrom. 

Arbors, covered with pink Dorothy Perkinses, here and there by thecurbside. And, worst of all, people sitting idle in the arbors. Idle!

She wouldn't have cared so much, if the people had been busy--even one ofthem. She fought herself. "I must be wrong. It can't be as silly as itlooks! It can't!"

She went home and found Petticoat waiting for her. 

"Like the burg, eh? Great stuff, what? Not an eyesore inside the city wall. Good work, I'll megaphone. "

Warble sat down in an easy-going chair--so easy, it slid across the roomwith her, and collided with a life-sized Chinese lady of yellow stone. 

"Yes, " Warble responded, "it's very uninteresting. "

CHAPTER V

Goldwin Leathersham was a great Captain of Industry. In fact, he put thedust in industry, or, at least, he took it out of it. He got it, anyway. 

His home was an Aladdin's Palace, with a slight influence of Solomon'sTemple. Gold was his keynote, and he was never off the key. 

When our Petticoats arrived at the party, they were met by gold-lacedfootmen, who whisked them into shape and passed them along. 

Warble found herself in a white and gold salon, so vast, that she felt likea goldfish out of water. The place looked as if Joseph Urban had designedit after he had died and gone to Golconda. Whatever wasn't white was gold, and the other way round. The gold piano had only white keys, and thedraperies were cloth of gold with bullion fringe. All real, too--no rolledor plated stuff. 

A huge coat-of-arms in a gold frame announced that Mr. Leathersham wasdescended from the Gold Digger Indians, a noble ancestry indeed; and it wasno secret that his wife had played in "The Gold-diggers, " during its seconddecade run. 

Marigold Leathersham was a charming hostess, and greeted Warble with ashriek of welcome. "You duck, " she cried; "how heavenly of you to dress sowell. "

Warble was simply attired in a white pussy-willow silk underslip. In herhaste and excitement she had forgotten to add the gown meant to go overit, and as she wore no jewels save the chased gold lingerie clasps at hershoulders, the result was a simplicity as charming as it was unintentional. 

And so she made a hit. 

That was the way things came to Warble; a hit--a social success--and allbecause she forgot to put on her frock. 

She mingled with the glittering throng of gilded youth, of golden ladsand girls, of gilt-edged married people, and found herself in the arms ofGoldwin Leathersham, her host. 

"Here comes the bride, " he shouted, as he piloted her about and introducedeverybody to her. 

"This demure little beauty, " he said, "is Daisy Snow. Note her sweet, pureface and wide-eyed, innocent gaze. "

"It is all so new--so wonderful--" Miss Snow breathed, "I'm a débutante, you know, and I have scarcely butterflied out of my chrysalis yet. Howsplendid the Leathershams are. He has a heart of gold. Oh, he is sucha good man, he says his life motto is the Golden Rule. " "And Mrs. Leathersham?" asked Warble. 

"Marigold? Oh, yes, she's as good as gold, too. We're firm friends. "

Warble was agog to mingle, so she moved on. 

Le Grand Paynter, a celebrated Cubic artist, fascinated her with hisflowing locks, flowing tie and marvelous flow of conversation. He asked topaint her as a Semi-nude Descending a Ladder, but she only said she mustrefer him to her Petticoat. 

Freeman Scattergood, the well-known philanthropist was chatting with Mrs. Charity Givens, who was the champion Subscription List Header. Many hadtried to oust her from this enviable position but without success. Nearthem stood Avery Goodman, the rector, and he was deeply engaged in aflirtation with Miss May Young, one of his choir girls. 

Manley Knight, a returned soldier, was resplendent with a Croix de Guerre, a Hot Cross Bun and many other Noughts and Crosses. 

Warble fingered them in her light way. 

"Isn't he splendid!" babbled Daisy Snow the _ingénue_; "Oh, how wonderfulto offer one's life for glory! You can fairly see the heroism bubble out ofhis eyes!"

"How you admire him!" said Warble. 

"Yes, but he doesn't care for me. "

"Not specially, " admitted Manley Knight. "Yes, " Daisy said. "He thinks metoo ignorant and unsophisticated--and I am. Now, there's Lotta Munn, theheiress--she's more in his line. But Ernest Swayne is devoted to Lotta. Ithink it will be a real love match--like the Trues. "

"The Trues?" asked Warble, politely. 

"Yes, " and she glanced toward a very devoted looking pair sitting apartfrom the rest, on a small divan. "They're wonderful! Herman True is themost marvelous husband you ever saw. He never speaks to anyone but hiswife. And she's just the same. She was Faith Loveman, you know. And they'vebeen married two years and are still honeymoon lovers! Ah, what a fate!"

Daisy sighed, a sweet little-girly sigh, and blushed like a slice of coldboiled ham. 

But this Who's Whosing was interrupted by a footman with a tray ofcocktails. 

Daisy Snow refused, of course, as became a débutante so did JudgeDrinkwater, who stood near by, frowning upon the scene, he being aProhibitionist. 

A sickly looking lady next to him achieved several, and Warble asked Daisywho she might be. 

"Oh, that's Iva Payne--you met her, you know. She's very delicate, asemi-invalid, under the care of specialists all the time. I don't exactlyknow what her malady is, but it's something very interesting to thedoctors. There's scarcely anything she can eat--I believe she brings herown specially prepared food to parties. 

"She seems to relish the cock-a-whoops all right, " Warble commented. 

"I understand the doctors prescribe stimulants for her--she is not at allstrong. They give her artificial strength, she says. "

"Yes, she seems to be strong for 'em. Don't you take any?"

"Oh no! I'm a débutante. And mother says she wants to be with me when Itake my first cocktail and smoke my first cigarette. "

"Dear girl, Daisy, so fresh and unspoiled! Her mother is one of athousand. "

This from Manley Knight, who constituted himself Daisy's proxy in thematter of cocktails and drank all that would have been Daisy's had hermother permitted. 

Goldwin Leathersham seemed to be acting as proxy for some débutantealso, for he seemed to feel pretty bobbish, but Warble was only slightlyinterested in the whole matter. 

She rolled her Wedgwooden eyes about, hoping the horde would be herdedtoward the dining-room. But no such luck. 

Instead they drifted in the opposite direction and, swept along with thecrowd, Warble found herself in one of a serried series of gilt chairs, facing a platform as large as a theater stage. 

An erudite looking man who appeared on the platform received tumultousapplause. 

"Who is he?" Warble whispered to her neighbor, who chanced to be AveryGoodman, "an impersonator?"

"Lord, no; it's Wunstone, the great scientist--rants on Fourth Avenuedimensions, or something like that. "

In a tone of forceful mildness the speaker began: "It must be concededthat, other things being equal, and granting the investiture of allinsensate communication, that a psychic moment may or may not, inaccordance with what under no circumstances could be termed irrelevancy, become warily regarded as a coherent symbol by one obviously of a trenchanthumor. But, however, in proof of a smouldering discretion, no featureis entitled to less exorbitant honor than the unquenchable demand ofendurance. 

"Though, of course, other things being equal, and granting the investitureof all insensate communication, no feature is entitled, in accordance withwhat under no circumstances could be termed irrelevancy, to become warilyregarded as a coherent symbol. And doubtless in proof of a smoulderingdiscretion, and in accordance with one obviously of a trenchant humor, it may or may not be warily regarded. 

"Though it cannot be denied that the true relevancy of thought to psychicaction is largely dependent on the ever increasing forces of disregardedsymbolisms. And this again proves the pantheistic power of doubt, considered for the moment and for the subtle purposes of our argument asfaith. For, granting that two and two are six, the corollary reasoningmust be that no premise is or may be capable of such conclusion as willrender it sublunary to its agreed parallel. 

"But this view is ultra and should be adopted with caution. 

"We are therefore forced to the conclusion that pure altruism isimpossible in connection with neo-psychology. "

There was more, but it was at that point that Warble went to sleep. 

She was awakened later by the high notes of a celebrated Metropolitansoprano, who had consented to exchange a few of her liquid notes forGoldwin Leathersham's yellow-backed ones. 

Tired, hungry and sleepy, Warble fidgeted in her little gilt chair, butthe music went inexorably on. 

It was followed by the appearance of a Neo Poet. 

This man wore eccentric dress of some sort, and as he waited for theapplause to melt away, he stood, absent-mindedly picking crumbs out of hisbeard. 

By subtle hint of auto-suggestion this made Warble hungrier than ever andshe looked around for Petticoat. But he was busy flirting with Daisy Snow, and it was not Warble's way to cut in. 

In hollow tones the performer read extracts, excerpts and exceptions fromthe works of Amy Lynn, Carl Sandpiper and Padriac, the Colyumist, andWarble went back to sleep. 

There was more, but no merrier, and when at last the platform was clearedfor the last time, the guests were refreshed by the passing of a smallglass of punch and a wafer to each. 

Then they went, with a flutter of silk stockings and twinkling slipperbuckles, and a medley of shrieked goodbys. 

Warble and Petticoat reached home. 

"Howja like 'em?" he asked. 

"I'm so hungry, " she wailed. 

"Oh, Warble, you ought to be more careful about eating in public. It isn'tdone. Watch Iva Payne--she doesn't. "

"Oh, Bill--" Warble began to cry. "I want to go back to the restaurant--"

"No, no--now, Cream Puff, I didn't mean to lambaste you. But they're asmart crowd--"

Warble let two tears rest, glistening, in her lower eyelashes, rolled upher eyes, pulled down the corners of her hibiscus flower mouth, and waitedto be kissed. 

She was. 

* * * * *

Up in Bill's bedroom. Gray silken walls, smoked pearl furniture, a built-in English bed, with gray draperies. 

Through a cloth of silver portiére, a bathroom done in gray rough stone. Oxidized silver plumbing exposure. 

No pictures on the walls, save one--a barbaric Russian panel byLarrovitch. 

At the windows, layers of gauze, chiffon, silk--all gray. 

A great circular divan was somewhere about, and as he sank down upon itand drew her with him into its engulfing down, he patched up the quarrel. 

"They took to you, " he said, "you went like hot cakes!"

It was an unfortunate allusion, and Warble, smiling with an engagingsmile, wheedled, "Pleathe, pleathe--"

"No, " Petticoat said, inexorably, "if you eat all the time you'll get tolook like that soprano. Howja like that?"

"Do you care if I'm fat, Bill?"

"Me? Why, I wouldn't care if you were as big as a house. You're my--well, you're my soulmate. "

"Oh, I'm so had and glappy! It's sweet to be yours. You must excuse myappetite--you're the only husband I have. My own Pill Betticoat!"

He kissed her in his eccentric fashion, and with her plump arms about hisneck, she forgot all about Ptomaine Street. 

CHAPTER VI

Warble's own maid was named Beer. 

A French thing--so slim she seemed nothing but a spine, but supplied withslender, talkative arms and a pair of delicate silk legs that displayedmore or less of themselves as the daily hint from Paris reported skirtsgoing up or down as the case might be. 

A scant black costume and a touch of white apron completed the picture, and Warble played with her as a child with a new doll. 

Beer wanted to patronize Warble, tried to do so, but found it impossible. Her patronage rolled off of Mrs. Bill Petticoat like hard sauce off a hotapple dumpling. 

"Do you get enough to eat, Beer?" her mistress asked her. 

"Wee, maddum, " the maid replied, in her pretty War French. "I eat but asmall. "

"Well, don't drop to pieces, that's all, " warned Warble. As to personalcare and adornment the hitherto neglected education of Warble Petticoatwas in Beer's hands. And she handed it out with unstinted lavishness. 

That was the way things came to Warble; in slathers--in big fat chunks. Inavalanches and rushing torrents. 

Beer engineered all her new wardrobe, and received sealed proposals forits construction. 

Beer taught her the mysteries of the toilette table, and once initiatedinto this entrancing art, Warble let herself go in the matter of cosmeticsand make-ups, and could scarce wait for Beer's afternoon out, to dabbleabout by herself. 

Beer taught her how to wear jewelry, and directed what pieces she shouldask Petticoat for next. 

Altogether, Warble was trying out things--but carefully, as a goodhousewife tries out lard. 

And she was not yet certain as to the results. Environment has to reckon, now and then with heredity. 

Warble, at soul, all for utility, economy, diligence and efficiency, transplated to Butterfly Center, with its keynote of careless idleness, waste motion and extravagance. 

One must win out. Had she a Dempsey of a heredity against a Carpentier ofan environment? Or was it the other way round?

She planned to reform Butterfly Center, to do away with the streetstatues, the useless patches of flowers; tear down and rebuild theridiculous classic architecture of many of the shops and substitute goodsolid livable houses for the castles and châteaux, the barracks andbungalows that adorned the residence section. 

These reforms she meant to bring about shortly, but first, she must beginwith her home. 

In her pride of being a Petticoat she loved every detail of Ptomaine Haul. Yet she knew it did not express herself, it was not the keynote of her ownWarbling personality. 

What to do. 

She sat in her boudoir, its mauve walls and gold Japanese screensbackgrounding her plump prettiness, as she lolled on a gold brocade_chaise longue_. 

She glanced out at the peacocks strutting in the Italian garden andlistened to the rooks cawing in the cypresses between the marble urns onthe terrace steps. 

It was a big proposition to change all that. To turn the bird sticks intopruning hooks and the bird baths into plowshares. 

Could she do it?

Doubtful. 

She went out into the hall and looked over the rail of the great rotunda. Rugs hung from the rail, as it might be a Turkish Monday. 

Below, she could see the lake in the front hall, also she could glimpsethe armored bronze Petticoats guarding the entrance that led to thecorridor that led to the hall leading into the dining-room. 

It was well nigh hopeless. 

Warble sighed. Then she rang for Beer and ordered some French pastry and acup of chocolate. 

Revived and revivified, Warble decided on a mad dash for reform. 

Ordering Beer to dress her quickly, she did all she could to help, andsoon, in a daring combination of canary, black and coral, she was on herway to the shops. 

She achieved what is known as a utility box, and which is compounded ofmatting and a few bamboo strips. 

This she caused to be set up in her boudoir. 

Came Petticoat. 

No oral observations, but the next day an antique Florentine chest, carvedby Dante, replaced the box. 

"Just as utile, " Bill remarked, "and a lot more expensive. Kiss me. "

That is the way the Petticoats of this world decree, and that is the waythe Warbles submit. 

That Thursday afternoon she was in love with her husband. She toddled intohis room to talk to him. She was in pastel chiffon boudoir jambiérespicked out with rosebuds. She sat, cross-legged, on one of his gray satinfloor pillows and looked up at him. 

Petticoat was just going out and he sat before the mirror, earnestlyadjusting a hair net over his permanent. 

"Hello, _Fruit Mousse_, " he said, half absent-mindedly, as he went onadjusting. 

Big Bill Petticoat was far from being effeminate. He was found ofaesthetics and anaesthetics, and his chief interests in life were beautyand his big bills. 

"What's the use of beauty, if a thing isn't useful?" Warble would ask, andPetticoat would reply, "What's the use of use, anyway? There's no use inhaving anything that isn't beautiful. "

And as the house was under Petticoat rule, Big Bill won out. 

"You must have a party, Warble, " Petticoat said, as he fitted a long, slimcigarette into a long, slim holder. 

"I'd rather have a baby, " and she looked up at him inquiringly. 

"Honest, Warbie, I can't afford it. I've lots of money, but we take a lotof keeping ourselves, and to keep a baby means almost a whole extraestablishment. Let's wait till I've saved up a bit, or we have a windfall. Leathersham owes me a small fortune for his cook's ptomaine cases--she'salways getting poisoned with her imported canned things--but Goldie's slowpay, and too, I want to make a few improvements on the place. I'm thinkingof bringing over a Moorish Courtyard intact--nice, eh?"

"What's it good for?" demanded Warble. "We've done our courting, andanyway--look here, Bill, there's only three things I can do. Have a baby--"

"Cut it out, Warb; I haven't the means just now. And it might be twins. "

"That's so. Well, the second thing is to reform this town. It's going tothe dogs--to little, silly Pekes and Poms. I can save it, and correct itsways and put it on a sound utilitarian basis. "

"Don't believe you could do that. "

"Can do. But the third trick is to flop over to their side and be like thetown people myself. "

Petticoat laughed outright. 

"Nixy on that, Warble, my duck. You'd have to reduce. "

"I speck I should. Well, then the reform act for mine. I've got to dosomething, Pet, to keep amused and interested. "

"That's what I said. Have a party. "

"I will. And it will be part of the reform. These people are too highbrow. Too soulful. Too artistic--" "Warble! How many times have I told you_never_ to use that word! Now, look here, if you want to play atreforming, go ahead, nobody will interfere with you. But where'll you gettime? You spend most of your waking hours in slumber, and the rest, eating. You're a sweet, lovely, cuddly thing, but if you keep on, some dayyou'll find you can't get your kimono together. "

"Then I'll wear two. But, Bill, I'm not so big, you know. "

Warble up, and parading the room with a martial air. 

"You're a perfect Bellona!" Petticoat said, smiling at her. 

"A Bologna! Oh, you horrid thing! But that reminds me I haven't hadsausage lately. I must speak to cook. Now, about my party. "

"Have a good one while you're about it. I might import a Spanish Ballet--"

"You might do nothing of the sort! This is to be my party, and I shall runit to suit myself. "

"All right, Tutti Frutti; you have no subtlety or poetry in your soul--indeed, I doubt if you have a soul--but you're a dear and a sweet--"

"Bill, I've an idea! Build bureaus right down to the floor and then collarbuttons can't roll under them!" "Fine idea! Better patent it. Must go. Goodby. "

"Wait a minute. Mrs. Holm Boddy is coming to see me to-day. What's shelike?"

"Oh, she's a hen-minded Hetty with cabriole legs. Don't bother with hermuch. They're lower case people--tin pergola and pebble garden sort. Andearly Victorian bathrooms. You won't like her--freeze her out. "

"All righty. Say--Billy dear--has you any choclums?"

"Not for little gourmands, " he took her in his arms. "I say, Warbie, youpromised to cut out sweets. Look here. "

He led her to the picture gallery where his simpering or frowningancestors looked down in painted disapproval. 

They were all slender--wasp-waisted ladies, long lean men. Not a fatty inthe bunch. 

Big Bill said nothing, his painted morals adorned their own tale. 

"I don't care!" Warble exploded, angrily. "If you don't give me enough toeat, I'll leave your bed and board and put a notice in the paper. And youneedn't flaunt your Petticoats in my face! I don't care _that_ for them!"

She snapped a dimpled pink thumb and forefinger at the whole exhibit, madea face at the skinniest one of all, and then sneaked casually into Bill'sarms. 

"Nice, nice, " she cooed, patting his mastoid process. "Run along now, andI'll plan my party. "

* * * * *

"That Boddy woman, " remarked Beer, as she dressed Warble; "she is a pest--a pill! Wait, Maddum, I beg you! I've only rouged one of your cheeks!"

"That's enough, " said Warble, inattentively, and she danced down stairs tofreeze out her caller. 

"I've been meaning to come for some time, " Mrs. Holm Boddy said, "but Ithought I'd give you a chance to get a little used to your new grandeur. Quite a change for you, isn't it?"

"No, " said Warble, "it's rather a come down. I've always been very grand. Tell me about yourself. "

"Oh, I'm the old-fashioned wife and mother. Devoted to my home, and myfamily. I deplore the modern tendency to neglect one's own fireside. "

"Yes, I should think you'd be happier there than anywhere else. "

Warble gazed at her guest. She was a tall, angular woman, so gaunt thather bones rattled. Warble wondered if Bill would really like her to belike that. 

"Oh, I am. My dear husband, my darling children--you ought to have alot of children, Mrs. Petticoat. "

"Yes, I shall, when we can afford it. My husband isn't very well off justnow, you see. "

"You live very extravagantly. Look at those rugs, now. Rugs costfearfully. "

"Don't you have any?"

"Oh, no. We don't waste money that way. "

"Bare floors?"

"No, carpets. More homey, you know. Nice Brussels in the parlor--real BodyBrussels--Bigelow--and in the bedrooms, Ingrain. Oh, the hominess of anew-laid Ingrain carpet, with lots of fresh straw under it! You acquaintedwith Avery Goodman, the Rector?"

"I've met him. "

"Splendid man-spiritual-minded and all that. Fine preacher, too. Verysoulful. I often sob right through his sermons. Better go hear him. "

"My husband is a busy man--we haven't time for church. "

"No, spose not. Doctors are kept on the jump. Specially specialists. And Iknow your husband is busy. Say, is there any truth in the report that hepays the grocers and delicatessen men to get--you know--doubtful cannedgoods, and not too fresh sea foods and all that--so there'll be moreptomaine cases?" "What a good idea!" Warble cried. "I had not heard of it, but if Bill does that he's more efficient than I thought him!"

"I spose he's terribly in love with you?"

"Bill? Oh, yes. We adore each other. "

"I didn't know. The Petticoats are all so thin--"

"Yes, a change is always pleasant. " Warble gave her engaging smile. 

"Maybe. That Daisy Snow now--she's so pretty _and_ slender. Dr. Petticoatseems mighty fond of her. "

"Well, you know what doctors are. Nice to everybody, of course. There's notelling who'll have ptomaine poisoning next. "

"Oh, yes, you can always tell that. It's sure to be Iva Payne. She's awfulattractive, too. You must be worried about your man, Mrs. Petticoat. "

"I do worry a lot. It keeps my flesh down. Tell me more to worry about. "

"Well, there's Lotta Munn, of course. I suppose you haven't a fortune ofyour own?"

"Oh, yes; I'm enormously rich in my own right. "

"You are! Why, where did your husband get you?"

"He got me out of a mail catalogue. " Warble made a face at her. "Must yougo, Mrs. Boddy?" she rose. "I won't ask you to come again, as I know howyou love your own home and fireside. Goodby. "

Though Mrs. Holm Boddy put up a strong resistance, Warble pushed her outof the front door and slammed it after her. 

"That woman has left finger marks on my nice clean soul, " she said, as shewent down to see the cook about the sausage. 

CHAPTER VII

She had reached the peak of excitement in a confident decision that herparty should be a success. 

In the morning she interviewed the cook. 

"You can spread yourself on the feast, François, " she said, "have any oldmenu you like so long as it's edible and enough of it. But especially Iwant you to make for me one hundred custard pies. "

The French chef looked puzzled. He was an expensive chef and part of hisduty was to look puzzled at any plain-named dish. 

"But, Madame, I do not know ze custard pie. Is it a crême paté?"

"No, it isn't a krame puttay, nor creamed potatoes, but cus-tard pie--see?_Pie_! Oh, don't stand there looking like a whitewashed clown! Get out ofmy way, I'll make them myself!"

Flinging on one of the chef's jackets and aprons, Warble flew at the joband with a battalion of helpers breaking eggs and skimming cream, sheherself tossed the flour and shortening together for the crust. 

Efficiency scored and in an incredibly short space of time eight dozencustard pies were cooling their heels in the pantry windows. 

"Not to be served with the supper, " Warble warned the butler, "when I wantthem brought in I'll tell you. "

Beer dressed Warble for the party, Petticoat standing by and advising. 

The gown was a few wisps of henna-colored chiffon which fitfully blew, half concealed, half disclosed a scant slip of jade green satin. 

Flesh-colored stockings, Petticoat decreed, and henna slippers with carvedjade buckles. 

"Now, her hair--" he mused, leaning on his folded arms over the back of achair. 

He walked slowly round Warble. 

"Oh, wopse it up anyway, " he said, "and tangle some jade beads in it. She'll stand that. "

His orders were carried out and Beer clasped her hands in silent ecstasyat the result of the combined efforts of herself and her master. 

"Some day, Warble, " Bill said, "I'll teach you how to dress becomingly. "

"And I'll teach you how to undress becomingly, " said Beer, not wanting tobe outclassed in her own game. 

Warble waved Petticoat out of the room, dismissed Beer with a simple "Getout!" and then quickly flung off the clothes she wore and hopped into alittle frock of white organdie and cherries. 

She wadded some hair over each ear, piled up the rest in a moppy coil andcrowned it with a wreath of cherries. 

The party came. 

"Good Heavens!" Warble thought, as she looked at the smart, bored crowd, "have I got to bring these hifalutin creatures down to earth? I don't knowthat I can make them laugh, but I'll give them a jolt!"

She did. 

Her cherries bobbing, two long-stemmed ones held between her teeth, sheflew around like a hen with its head off. 

"You see, " she explained, "it's a Mack Sennett party, everybody putsthings down everybody's back. Like this--and here are the things. "

From a tray brought by a footman, Warble selected a fuzzy caterpillar andturning quickly dropped it down inside the soft collar of TrymieIcanspoon, a poet, who _would_ dress as he pleased. 

He went into amusing spasms and everybody took something from the tray. There were cold raw oysters, bits of ice, thistles, cooked spaghetti andplain granulated sugar. They had to put them down the backs of the menonly, because the fashionably dressed ladies hadn't any backs to put themdown. You can't put an oyster down two crossed strings of pearls. 

It caused great hilarity to see the Reverend Goodman standing on his head, trying to lose a red-hot silver dollar; and Daisy Snow, whose débutantefrock was available for the purpose, wriggled beneath the ticklingcrawling of a large but harmless spider. 

Warble was almost in hysterics over the funny antics of GoldwinLeathersham down whose loose and ample collar she had herself poured aglass of water on two seidlitz powders. 

"Next, " she cried, clapping her hands, "we'll have an artistic game. Hereit comes. "

Lackeys and minions brought in pails of kalsomine, of various tints, someof pale pastel shades, others of deep rich hues. One was given to eachguest, and each was provided with a beautiful new whitewash brush. 

"Now, " Warble explained, her blue eyes dimpling with delight, "you eachmake a splash on the wall--a big, hit-or-miss splash. Then we each try toevolve a lovely picture by few bold strokes. "

This was great fun. 

Manley Knight, with a mighty splash of color that landed on a Fragonardpanel, had quite a good start for a "Storm at Sea. " He worked it up withfine technique and you would have been surprised at the result. 

Iva Payne took a splash from several different pails thereby achieving aCubist landscape. It was entitled "High Tide off the Three-mile Limit, "and was a startling success. 

Daisy Snow, timid little dear, made but a tiny daub and worked it upcarefully. 

"That, " she said, "is a miniature of Big Bill. "

All in all, it was gay sport, and even Mrs. Charity Givens took part, though she protested she was no artist and couldn't even draw a straightline. 

The next performance was a contest between Adam Goodsport and AveryGoodman. 

Bets were made on the two contestants before the betters knew what thescrap was to be. 

"It's a character sketch, " Warble explained. "Mr. Goodsport tries toblacken Mr. Goodman's character, while the Rector tries to whiten Mr. Goodsport's character. "

Avery Goodman was then presented with a bag of flour and Adam Goodsportwas handed a bag of soot. 

They went at it hand over fist, and in a few moments the blacking andwhiting process was so complete that both were pronounced perfecttransformations and all bets were off. 

Faces, hands and clothes were alike befloured and besooted, until Goodmanwas a veritable Blackamoor while Adam Goodsport looked like a Marcelline. 

A few eyebrows indicated a suspicion that Big Bill Petticoat's bride was aLittle Mischief, but nobody said anything about it. 

"If I can only reform them, " Warble thought to herself, "if I can onlymake them like and enjoy this innocent fun instead of wearing their poorbrains out over capitalled Art and Literature. "

"Now, " she said, briskly, "we're going to play a game I learned inShanghai. All take off your shoes and stockings. No one excused--come on--off with them. "

Beer and a few other maids came in to assist the ladies, the men wereproperly valeted, and the barefooted crowd sat waiting further orders. 

Daisy Snow made a remark about being a maiden with reluctant feet, butnobody noticed it. 

Several seemed rather relieved than otherwise at the condition imposedupon them. 

"Now, " said Warble, but before she could go further, Adam Goodsport buttedin with:

"Oh, please, Mrs. Petticoat--oh, please! Such an opportunity! May neveroccur again! Oh, can't I--may I not--oh, dear lady, do say yes--"

"Lordy, what do you want to do? Speak out, man!"

"Why, you see, I am a solist--like a palmist you know--but as to feet. Istudied solistry in Asia Minor and I know it from the ground up. Oh, please, Mrs. Petticoat, let me read your sole!"

"Do, " cried Warble, "love to have you. "

She plumped herself into a pillowed divan, and held her little pink feetstraight out in front of her. 

Goodsport, sitting on a cushion at her feet, took one and scrutinized thesole. 

"The Solar system, " he began, "is interesting in the extreme. It wasinvented by Solon, though Platoe also theorized on the immortality of thesole. His ideas, however have been discarded by modern footmen. 

"Locke, is his treatise On the Human Understanding, discusses the subjectfully and with many footnotes, and old Samuel Foote himself castfootlights on the subject. "

"Now, looky here, " Warble objected, "I won't have a lecture in my house! Iobject to anything of an intellectural nature. "

"This has nothing to do with the intellect, " Adam assured her. "Quite thereverse, now, you listen. It's really interesting. The palmist may claimto read the true character from the lines of the hand, but it is only bysolistry that the real sole is laid bare and the character of a subject inany walk of life is exposed. The lines of the sole are greatly indicativeof character, for all traits must draw the line somewhere. Now, Mrs. Petticoat, this line extending from the Mount of Trilby to the outer sideof the sole is the life line. If that appears to be broken it indicatesfuture death. If more pronounced on one sole than the other, it impliesthat the subject has one foot in the grave. You haven't, don't be alarmed. Here is the headline, straight and continuous, showing a long and levelhead. "

"Ouch, " remarked Warble, "you tickle. Try somebody else, " and she drew herfeet under her. 

"Me, " exclaimed Daisy Snow, coming over and holding out her dainty rightfoot. 

"H'm, " said Goodsport. "This line running from the Mount of Cinderella tothe heel is the clothes line and denotes love of dress. This line crossingit is the fish line and shows you are incapable of telling the truth. "

Daisy flounced away, mad, and Mrs. Charity Givens, with some trepidation, offered her ample and generous foot for dissection. 

"A thorough, broad understanding and a friendly footing toward all, "declared the solist, "and no danger of misunderstanding. However, yourbroken headline indicates pugnacity. "

"Nothing of the sort!" she snapped at him, and waddled away. 

Goldwin Leathersham, greatly interested, insisted on having his pedalinterpreted. 

"Mount of Atalanta highly prominent, " said Goodsport, "that means you area runner, either for office or for pleasure. Here is a line meeting--thatindicates a railroad man. H'm. A well-developed football shows you havebeen to college. You seem to be inclined to solemates--"

But Leathersham had taken to his heels. 

"Please, " said Iva Payne, gracefully offering her long psychic foot forperusal. 

"Ah, the poetic foot!" the soloist exclaimed. "There are two kinds ofpoetic feet--the Iambic and the Trochaic. You have one of each. In poeticfeet the heels are often found in French forms. But poets are a footlooseclass and are often found with lame and halting feet. You don't seem to bea poet. "

"Never said I was, " retorted Iva, shortly, and Warble said, "Stop thisnonsense, it makes too much kicking. Now we're going to play the game Ilearned in Buda Pesth. "

She led them to the picture gallery which had been prepared for the gameby having many sheets of fly-paper placed on the floor, sticky side up. 

"It's Fly-paper Tag, " she said. 

It _was_ Fly-paper Tag--she was quite right. 

"You're it!" screamed Mrs. Givens as she pushed the minister over onto asheet of fly-paper. 

"It yourself, " shrieked Leathersham adroitly shoving a sheet where he sawMrs. Givens would light next. 

* * * * *

Warble was certain she was a great reformer. 

Yet would these reformed people stay reformed?

True, they were now in the spirit of her party, Mack Sennett himselfcouldn't have asked a better interpretation of his own vital principles. But had they come to realize that this after all was the real thing, thetrue ideal?

Warble feared. 

* * * * *

They were a stuck-up lot. The fly-paper had intrigued them all. Not onlywere they all half-soled with it but the merry wags had decorated theladies' bare backs and the men's coated backs, until all looked likesandwich men or peripatetic ragpickers. 

Trymie Icanspoon crowned Mrs. Charity Givens with a fresh sheet oftanglefoot and Warble hilariously made a foolscap of another for theRector's bald head. Judge Drinkwater folded Daisy Snow's two little handstogether, then wrapped them tightly in fly-paper, and shook with laughterto see her futile attempts to get free. 

"Naughty man!" she cried, "to make poor little me so helpless!" With aspring she flung her entangled hands over the Judge's head, and hung roundhis neck like a pretty little millstone. 

Warble relaxed, and found that she was shockingly tired and very hungry. 

But she was the stuff of which true reformers are made and Martin Lutherhad nothing on her. 

Then Beer came tripping in with a pile of varicolored garments which sheheld up to view. 

"These, " Warble announced, "are the real Mack Sennett costumes. They areone-piece bathing suits, I got them from an importer of contraband goods. You are to put them on in place of your clothes. And please forget thatyou are Butterflies and turn into bathing beauties and champion swimmers. "

While they were shyly getting into the suits, she donned her own, a littlescalloped apron effect, with cross-strapped sandals, and a silk bandannaknotted round her head. 

She glanced about and saw Big Bill Petticoat beaming with proud glee athis wife's social success, and looking lovely himself in a black satinone-piece, with jet shoulder straps. 

For a second Warble could see only Petticoat's pink cheeks and perfectedeyebrows. Then she shook off the spell and keyed up. 

"We're going to have an obstacle race, " she announced, "all over thehouse. You must follow me, wherever I go. I shall lead you a dance! Andthen I shall come last to the lake in the front hall, and whoever isnearest me there, will be rewarded. "

Yet even as she spoke, she overheard Trymie whispering to Iva Payne, "Yes, I believe that the new art era into which we are now slipping, willworship beauty for itself alone, and that art, sublimated by--"

She turned away, sick at heart. 

Why bother, her tortured soul cried out. Yet the irrepressible impulse ofreform egged her on and it was a perfectly good egg. 

She flew past Petticoat, only pausing to shout, "Like it all, my tramp?Yes, it _is_ an expensive party. "

Then she led her followers a mad race. Sliding down banisters, squeezinginto dumb waiters; crawling under beds and out the other side; jumping inand out again of bathtubs full of perfumed water. Out of windows, in atscuttles. Through booby-traps of half-open doors, on the lintel of whichwere perched pans full of live crabs or little boxes of mice. 

On rushed the horde, Mrs. Givens panting from over exertion, GoldieLeathersham limping because of a crab hanging to his great toe. 

On they went, and at last, as Warble drew up at the lake in the hall, shewas closely followed by Trymie Icanspoon, and true to her promise sherewarded him by pushing him into the lake. It was but a shallow pool, hecouldn't drown, but the fun of it was, Warble had caused the water to bedrained off and the tank filled with mayonnaise. 

Wherefore Trymie's soft plop into the oily depths was of a ludicrousnature. 

Then the guests were allowed to resume their own clothes and supper wasannounced. 

Conversation turned to art matters, and Leathersham who was a collector ofmany various rarities asked Petticoat how his new collection wasprogressing. The collection was one of early American Pieplates. 

"Doing well, " Big Bill answered. "I have just achieved a yellow earthenJohn Adams, that is authentic and very rare. Except for my BarbaraFrietchie tin one, it is perhaps the gem of my collection. "

"Good!" Leathersham exclaimed, interestedly, "may I see it?" Petticoatsummoned a lackey and two minions and sent them to his curio room to fetchthe plates. But they returned with the startling announcement that all thepieplate collection had disappeared!

"Heavens and earth!" Petticoat cried. "Lock the doors, search the pockets!Why, that collection is worth millions!"

"What's the matter?" Warble inquired, seeing the hullaballoo. "Oh, " as shewas told, "I used those plates, dear. I was making a lot of pies and ourpieplates gave out. "

"Making a lot of pies?" Petticoat repeated, wonderingly, while MarigoldLeathersharn murmured, "How quaint!" in a supercilious way. 

"Yes, " went on Warble, unperturbed. "Want to see 'em?"

They did, and all went to look at the eight dozen custard pies in thepantry windows. 

"Whoopee!" shouted Petticoat, "here's where I take the helm! Cut out therest of the formal supper, and let's have a pie eating contest. "

It warmed the cockles of Warble's heart to see how they all fell in withthis suggestion. Could it be? Was she really having some effect on theirterrible aestheticism at last?

Absorbed in her thoughts, she ate her pies and when the contest was overthe prize was awarded to Warble Petticoat. "Oh, " she cried, astounded. "Iwasn't in the game at all! The hostess never should be. I was just eatingwhat I wanted. "

"You're a dear, " Marigold Leathersham said to her. "I'm going to love you. How your husband must adore you, you pretty thing. "

"Yes, he does. " Warble stated. "At least, he says so. "

"He's a truthful man, " Marigold declared, "you'd know that just to look athim. There's something in his face just now--"

"It's pie, " said Warble, "he's very fond of it. "

To Warble's great delight there were enough pies left for her finalentertainment. 

"Folks, " she said, "this is a Mack Sennett party, and it wouldn't becomplete without throwing custard pies. So we will choose sides. "

Judge Drinkwater and Goldwin Leathersham were made captains and they chosesides. 

The party being thus divided, they bombarded each other with custard piesafter the manner of certain comedians, till there wasn't a round ofammunition left. 

Then Iva Payne said she felt sick and wanted to go home and of course justfor that they all had to go. 

"The nicest party ever!" they chorused at parting. "So novel and _naïve_--so quite entirely out of the ordinary. "

As the last pied guest disappeared she turned wearily to her Petticoat. 

"I tell you, Warb, " he said, "you are sure one corker! You put 'em tosleep all right! Now you've shown 'em how, you bet they won't go on havingtheir stupid highbrow intellectural old gatherings. Hop along to bed, little tired Lollipop. "

His long lithe arms gathered her forcefully to him, and her irritation athis strength was lost in her admiration of his grace and skill inimparting affection. 

* * * * *

From _The Butterfly Centerpiece_:

The Mack Sennett party at the home of Dr. Bill Petticoat was a hundred percent success. Little Lady Petticoat is nobody's fool. She knows that alucky punch is her only chance. A short, swift hook, straight from theshoulder. The pretty Warble is a perpetual promise of joy, yet she showssymptoms of curvature of the soul--and it is, so far, a toss-up whethershe will have her passport _viséd_ or be given the gate. 

* * * * *

The week after, the Leathershams gave a party. The gilt-chaired audiencelistened to Sable Caviaro the new Russian violinist and Slubber D. Gullion, who discoursed on the Current Trend of Current Bolshe Vikings. 

The refreshing episode consisted of champagne and Saratoga chips. 

CHAPTER VIII

The Restless Sexteen was the record altitude of Butterfly Center. It wasthe elect and select of the intellect; it was the whole show--the veryWholly of Whollies. To belong to it was canonization. Though some of itsmembers also belonged to the Toddletopsis Club, it meant their leading adouble life. 

The Restless Sexteen were mostly young married women with their husbandsas nonresident members. 

They studied higher psychology and broader psychopathy. The wrestled withand threw Einstein and let themselves dream again with Freud. Psychoanalysis was their washpot, and over the fourth dimension did theycast their shoes. 

Their afternoon digest was held at Faith Loveman's and Warble went. 

The Loveman home was an abstract bungalow, which showed rather plainly theiron hand in the velvet glove influence of the Japanese. 

The large light hall had a built-in abstract table, and on this was anenormous bronze plaque which held a thin layer of water on which restedone pansy. 

Faith's devotion to the Doctrine of Elimination allowed nothing else inthe hall, but in the living room there were three whole pieces offurniture besides, of course, the caterer's gilt chairs brought in to holdthe restless sex as they tried to rest from their restlessness. 

Faith Loveman looked curiously at Warble. 

"You can't be very restless, " she observed, "you'd be thinner. "

Warble smiled engagingly. 

"I do want to be thinner, " she conciliated, "how can I?"

And, somehow, that started them all off. They restlessly gave advice, recommended certain exercises, uncertain drugs and most unattractivediets. 

They told their own experiences, extolled or berated their masseuses, scribbled addresses of corsetieres for one another, and in their interestand restless excitement they forgot all about Warble and she wanted to gohome. 

But she had her mission to perform, and she waited until they restlesslychanged the subject. 

They discussed current plays and seemed to get out of them far more thanthe author ever put in. They talked of a picture exhibit at the GauguinGalleries, but this was as Choctaw to Warble; not a word could sheunderstand. 

"Are you of the cognoscenti?" asked Faith Loveman of Warble. "I know allabout art but I don't know what I like, " she returned, blushing prettily. 

"Oh, we'll teach you that. That's what this club is for, to help us tofind ourselves, to give our restlessness an outlet to express the ego inour cosmos and illumine the dark patches of our souls. We're riding thepace that kills, living at the tension that snaps, blowing the bubble thatbreaks. We need an outlet--a vent--you understand?"

"Yop, " said Warble, "your soul pressure is too high. "

"But we want it high--we love it high--we're restless--we're keyed up, taut-strung, and hungry for soul food. "

"I s'pose that's the only kind you have at these meetings. "

Faith Loveman stared so hard that Warble made a face at her and went home. 

* * * * *

She reflected. 

"It was my fault. I might have known restless people wouldn't eat. And Iknew I couldn't bite on their restless sex problems. A big one seems to behow to get thin and how to stay so. They were all ready to drop the highsign babble for that! But all women are. They took it up again. 

"Can I reform them? Or shall I be sucked in, like Italians eat spaghetti, and my personality absorbed by the Butterflies, till I forswear all Istand for--all my utilitarian ideals shattered, all my prosaic hopesdashed, all my common sense wrenched from me, and my poor little brain-panfilled with the soul-mash of these high-strung sexaphones?"

She ignored Beer's offer to undress her, she ran upstairs to anunfrequented bathroom, and flinging off her clothes, she got into the tuband wept in terror, her body a round pink blob in the briny water. 

But, thought the poor child, it's the most sensible place to cry. 

When Petticoat came home she said:

"Honeybunch, let me in on your professional secrets. Tell me more aboutyour most interesting cases. It might make me restless. "

"Nothing much to tell. Life just one ptomaine after another. Cases allalike except for the primal cause. "

"Well, tell me something. Where've you been just now?"

"Over to Iva's. She had 'em again. Ripe olives. Getting better. Where youbeen?"

"To the Restless Sexteen Club. "

"Like it?"

"I don't get it. They talk about things that aren't there. But I think Icould make them see--"

"Oh, cut it out, Warble. You'd dust books so hard, you'd dust off the giltedges. They're deep-sea thinkers, that bunch--let 'em alone. What'd theytalk about?"

"About a book called 'Painted Shawls' or something, and about Thyco-Serapy, and about a play called 'The Housebroke Heart. ' Take me to see it, will you, Bill?"

"You wouldn't like it. You'd prefer the movies. "

* * * * *

Four days later, Daisy Snow called and gave Warble a jolt or two. 

"Huh, sizing me up, are they?" Warble sniffed. "Looking at me through thefootle, distorted little microscope of their own silly scrubby littlesouls! Pooh, they couldn't, one of them, make a decent puff paste!"

"But we can get cooks to do that. The Intelligentsia seek for the rareessence of thought, for colored words and perfumed cadences--"

"There, there, Daisy, don't try me too far! What did Lotta Munn say aboutme?"

"Oh, she didn't say much. Just that you're too stout and you haven't anyideals and you don't know a picture from a hole in the wall, and shethinks a man like Dr. Petticoat is wasted on you. "

"Huh, she used to like Bill herself, didn't she?" "Does yet. She'spoisoned nearly as often as Iva Payne is. "

"H'm; anybody else after Bill?"

"Only May Young. "

"And you. "

"Oh, me! I'm just a débutante. I'm not after anybody yet. "

"Well, you keep off my Petticoat preserves! That Big Bill person is mine--and I won't stand for any nonsense about that. "

"My goodness, Warble, I didn't know you had so much spunk. Lotta says youhaven't any. "

"She'll find out! Go on, what else did the cats say?"

"They made fun of your party--"

"Oh, my party! That I tried to make so nice and gay and festive!"

"They thought those bathing suits were--er--rather bizarre--"

"I _didn't_ get them out of the Bazar! I thought it all up myself. Andthey made fun of it! Go home, Daisy Snow, I've got to reflect. "

* * * * *

Like a very small, very spanked child, she crawled upstairs on her handsand knees. 

It was not her father she wanted now, but an old Petticoat ancestor, deadthese two hundred years. Petticoat was dawdling on a _chaise longue_, absorbed in a small mirror, and wondering whether one more hair out ofeach eyebrow would strengthen the arch from a purely architecturalviewpoint. 

"What's the trouble?" Warble asked, "broken down arches?"

"Nope, guess they're all right. "

"Say, Bill, " and she crept into the hollow of his chest, "are folkstalking about me?"

"They sure are. "

"What do they say?"

"Well, I hate to stir up trouble, but since you began it, I may as wellown up they think you're just about as lowbrow as they come. And I s'poseyou are. "

"Oh, well. And what about the girls? Are they jealous of me?"

"Sort of. Lotta says if you cut her out with Trymie Icanspoon, she'llelope with me. "

"And will she?"

"Not if I reach the ticket office first. Besides, I like Iva better. "

"Oh, Bill, don't you love me any more?"

"Course I do, Little Fudge Sundae. But a popular doctor hasresponsibilities. "

"I know. I don't mean to be unreasonable. But let's keep peace in thefamily as long as it's convenient--see what I mean?" "I see. Do you thinkI'd like my new pajims better trimmed with frilled malines, or justdecorated with a conventional pattern of gold soutache braid?"

Warble, sitting on the other end of the now separated _chaise longue_ madeno reply, except to scratch her leg a little. 

Petticoat yawned, took a stroll round the room, tried on a new dressinggown, mixed himself a highball, smoked three cigarettes, glanced through"What the Swell-dressed Man can Spare, " wound his watch, put out hisAngora cat, yawned again, sneezed twice, stomped out in the hall and back, and then went and stood in front of the fireplace, teetering on his heels. 

But until he bawled, "Aren't you ever going to clear out?" she sat, unmoving. 

CHAPTER IX

Lotta Munn ran in occasionally. She was of the anecdotal type. The storiesshe told made one gasp. They were always prefaced by an "Oh, my dear, Ican't tell you _that_ one--it's _too_ awful!"

Warble didn't care much for these tales, indeed, frequently missed thepoint, and laughed purely from a sense of duty. 

As she observed to Petticoat, one day, in exasperation, "There are onlytwo classes of women in this world--women who tell naughty stories, andwomen I have never met!"

Also Lotta Munn was by way of being complimentary. She told Warble thatold Leathersham thought her a peach, and that Trymie Icanspoon declared hewas going to make love to her. 

That Mrs. Charity Givens had heard she was a great heiress, and meant tostick her for a new hospital. That Le Grand Paynter wanted to do herportrait, life size and full width, and that the Reverend Avery Goodmansaid she was very light on her feet for a fat woman. 

The last made Warble mad and she made a face at Lotta and sent her home. 

* * * * *

A rose-colored June day. Meringues of cloud floating on a sky of ceruleancustard. 

She crawled out for a walk. It was ninety-eight in the shade, too hot torun much. 

She walked down Ptomaine Street, her nose shining, and pearly dropschasing each other down her back like rain on a car window pane. 

In her tucked white dimity and ankle-ties, her pink sunbonnet and hertiny, frilled parasol, she was as much out of place in the aesthetic townas whipped cream on a grapefruit. 

She circled the outskirts of the town, and noted the massive and imposinggateways to the great estates. She knew the grandeur inside, she had beenthere. Cubist landscapes, some of them, others were Russian steppes, andin one instance a magnate was having the ruins of an Egyptian templeexcavated on his grounds, which he had previously with difficulty and atgreat expense had buried there. 

She did not know what to do about it. 

She felt, intuitively, that these men would resent her criticism of theirhomes. Yet she couldn't let it go on--this gigantic inutility, thismammoth lack of practical, efficient management. 

Why, the ground sunk in a sunken garden would raise crops enough to feedan army--and Lord knew how soon they might be needed. 

And then she happened to think that reform, like charity should begin athome, and she decided to start in on Petticoat. 

She did. 

* * * * *

They were sitting in their home-like Tower of Jewels, and, a bit timidly, Warble said, "Let's pote quoetry to each other. "

Poor child, nervousness or emotion always made her reverse her initialletters. 

"All right, " Petticoat returned, good naturedly, "you begin. "

Just what Warble wanted! Fate was always good to her. 

"I will, because I hope to reform your tastes, dear, and teach you to seethe beauty of simple beautiful poetry. Listen to this:

 "Weep and the world weeps with you, Laugh and you laugh alone--"

"That'll do, Warb. Don't go too far. Now it's my turn. But, you know, dear, quoting isn't everything. You must learn to dissect, to interpret, andabove all to trace the influences that swayed the poet. 

"Now I'll read you a poem picked at random, and then I'll trace theinfluences for you. "

Petticoat reached out a languid arm, picked up a current magazine andread:"'FULFILMENT

 'Here, at your delicate bosom, let death Come to me Where night has made a warm Elysium, Lulled by a soft, invisible sea. 

 'Now in the porches of your soul I stand Where once I stood; Fed and forgiven by a liberal hand, My broken boyhood is renewed. 

 'You are my bread and honey, set among A grove of spice; An ever brimming cup; a lyric sung After the thundering battle-cries. 

 'You are my well-loved earth, forever fresh, Forever prodigal, forever fond, As, from the sweet fulfilment of the flesh, I reach beyond. '"

Noting that Warble was still awake, Petticoat discoursed:

"In the first line, we note the influence of Swinburne. There could be nobetter start out. The Swinburne collocation of delicate bosom and deathis both arrestive and interesting. The third and fourth lines denote theinfluence of Poe. To be sure, 'a warm Elysium' sounds like a new andappetizing soft drink, but that is not what is meant; and the sea isindubitably the one that sounded around the tomb of Miss Annabel Lee. 

"The second stanza opens under pure Tennysonian influences. This may not beclear at first to the beginner in influence tracing, but it is unmistakablyso to the expert. The recurring sibilants, the sound without sense, thefine architectural imagery, all point to the great Lady Alfred. The latterhalf of this stanza is due entirely to the strong influence of D. W. Griffith. The poem was, without doubt, written after the poet had been tosee 'Broken Blossoms, ' and the liberal hand from which that productionwas flung to a waiting world left its ineffaceable finger-prints on hispolished mind. 

"Now we come to stanza three. The first line shows the influence ofMother Goose; the second is an unconscious echo of Solomon's Song; theever-brimming cup owes itself to Omar; and the rest of the stanza to RupertBrooke. 

"Thus we see the importance of widespread reading, and a catholicity ofinfluences. 

"Influence is wonderful! To invent a new simile, it is like a pebbledropped into a placid lake; the ripples form ever-widening circles, and theinfluence of an influence is never wholly lost. 

"Perhaps--and this is quite as it should be--the final stanza is the finestof all. It starts out under the influences of Walt Whitman. Had Waltbeen omitted, the whole structure would have tumbled to the ground! Noself-respecting poet now-a-days writes without being influenced byWhitman. It isn't done. It would be as indiscreet as to appear in one'sshirt-sleeves. The influence of the good, gray Poet _must_ be felt, must be_shown_, or the budding bard is out of the running. Only a dash of Whitmanis needed--'my well-loved earth' and 'prodigal' are quite sufficient. 

"'The sweet fulfilment of the flesh' is a final roundup that gracefullyblends Whitman's and Ella Wheeler Wilcox's influential powers--and, incidentally, justifies the magnificent title of the poem. 

"Then, as a crowning triumph, note the splendid last line, a masterpiecebrought about by the influence of Sir Oliver Lodge and his spiritistic ilk!Could anything be finer? What imagery for a last line! What a break-off, leaving the gasping reader in a state of choking suspense, of avid, ungratified curiosity! A great poem indeed, and influenced by a noble armyof writers. 

"Nor is the manner of the thing all that matters. The theme--the great ideaof the whole affair--is a marvelous example of influence. The New YorkState Legislature recently passed a bill making attempted suicide no longera punishable offense. If successful, it is, like virtue, its own reward. Indeed, it has to be, for as the Penal Code distinctly states, owing tothe impossibility of reaching the successful perpetrator no forfeiture isimposed. But the new law lifts the ban from futile efforts in the matterof self-destruction, and one need not pay the hitherto exacted fine of athousand dollars by way of a luxury tax on such diversion. 

"Can it be doubted, then, that our Poet read of this new law, and--it maybe unconsciously--was so influenced by it that he devoted sixteen lines ofhis precious verse to the expression of his willingness to let death cometo him?"

"I don't blame him for being willing, and I wouldn't put a straw in Death'sway, " said Warble, earnestly. "I'm glad you read me that, Bill, for that isjust the sort of thing I mean to eradicate from your system. It's like adisease, this aestheticism of yours--it's the Culture Ptomaine. "

"Now, hold on, Dumpling Dear, do you know a culture from a ptomaine?"

"Oh, I don't mean the cultures you take, I mean Culture with a big C. It'sa poison, and as you cure ptomaine poisoning, I'm going to cure this townof its deadly art poisoning. I'm in revolt. "

"That's right, everybody who is anybody is in revolt against somethingnowadays, because our knowledge of the truth is too great for our existingconditions, and it bursts--"

 "Like poor Betsy Binn, who was so very pure within, She burst this outer shell of sin, And hatched herself a cherubim!"

Warble interrupted. 

"Yes, or as Gertrude Stein puts it: 'It is a gnarled division, that whichis not any obstruction, and the forgotten swelling is certainly attracting. It is attracting the whiter division, it is not sinking to be growing, itis not darkening to be disappearing, it is not aged to be annoying. Therecannot be sighing. This, is bliss. ' There you see how art is greater thanlife--how--"

"Do you think I'm too fat?" Warble again interrupted him. 

"I do, my dear. You weren't, I think you are, I know you will be. "

"Would you love me more if I were--didn't weigh so much?"

"Yes, in exact inverse ratio. "

Warble made an awful face at him, and then she went quietly around behindhim, and dropped down his back a little fuzzy caterpillar, which she hadtied in her handkerchief for that very purpose. 

 * * * * *

It was her last effort to cure her husband of culture poisoning, but shewas not yet ready to give up her big idea of reforming Butterfly Center. 

Warble was a determined little person, and, too, fate often gave her a goodboost, and she thought one was about due. 

 * * * * *

She went to the Toddletopsis Club, at Lotta Munn's. 

Lotta had inherited eight or ten town and country houses, and for themoment was perched like a bird of passage, on her Roman villa, called SevenHills. 

Warble's little electric Palanquin rolled through the arch of Constantineand she ascended the dazzling flight of marble steps to the entrance patio. 

"Hello, Pot Pie, " screamed Lotta, by way of greeting, "come on in, thefirewater's fine. "

It was, and there was lots of it, and a group of long silk-leggedButterflies were sprawled on the Roman couches, smoking and chatting asthey spun the Toddletops. 

Warble was unfamiliar with the teetotum-like things, but the others kindlyinstructed her. Moreover, there was a roulette wheel and some other devicesof which our litle heroine didn't even know the name. 

Also, there were tables, where those who chose played high-staked bridge, poker or rum. 

Warble wasn't a born gambler. Games of chance had no appeal for her. Shewanted to make faces at everybody and run away. But she scolded herself forbeing too superior and forced herself to stay with the bunch. 

In a way, she was rewarded, for she won all the money from the others. Her luck was monumental. Every different game she tried she took all thestakes, and at last having broken the bank, she was forced to go home forlack of occupation. 

 * * * * *

She was a proud and stuck-up chit all the evening. 

Trymie Icanspoon called and flirted something fierce. But it didn't mean athing to Warble, for the man was so saturated with art that it oozed forthin his conversation and she had no idea what he was driving at. 

He went home thinking she was the most deliciously tempting morsel he hadever seen and the biggest fool. 

 * * * * *

"No, I couldn't fall in love with him. I like him, as a gift-book, but he'sno man. Could I kiss him? Not with a real movie kiss. 

"They say marriage is a lottery. I haven't drawn much. I mean in the matterof love. I wish I had a Prince Charming. Bill would do, all right, but hethinks I'm too fat. I wish I could get thinner--all of them are. Lotta'slike a golf club and Daisy's like a breadstick. 

"I s'pose they were born that way. 

"I wasn't. 

"I wonder when we'll begin to keep a family. 

"I'm crazy about Bill--I am--I am--

"Am I?

"All the girls are, too. 

"Does he care for them? For any of them? For all of them?

"For that detestable Daisy? That disgusting Iva? That rotten Lotta!

"Oh, I may as well admit it--I just adore Bill!

"This frock is too tight--I must have it stretched. 

"Yes, I'm mad over my husband--but--"

 * * * * *

She sought Petticoat in his rooms. 

She tumbled into his lap, and he pushed her out until he could set asidethe Angora cat and the Airedale and his pet guinea pig, then he saidpolitely, "Is this your seat?" and she perched on his knee. 

"Do you love me, dear?" she asked, her voice full of a dumb pathos. 

"Ooooooooooooooooooo! I'm sleepy, " he said, with a cavernous yawn and aHerculean stretch that threw her out on the floor. "Want any money?" Shelooked at him. He was not unlike John Barrymore in The Jest, and Warblefell for him afresh. 

"You are so beautiful--" she wailed. "I wish you loved me--"

"I wish I did, " he returned, honestly, "but you are such a butter-ball. "

"Oh, Butterfly Thenter calls anybody Butter-ball who weights overninety-five! If you're so cut up about it I won't live under this roofanother minute! I can earn my own living, and all I want, too! You can geta divorce and marry some thread of a woman who has ptomaines all the time!"

"Pish, tush, Warb, don't be a damfool! Lay off the melodrama. I do loveyou--at least, I love ninety-five pounds of you. Now, will you be good?"

"Yeth. "

"And will you try to think of me as a devoted and loving husband, even ifI'm not one?"

"Oh, my dear, I am unjust to you! I will take what you give me--what youcan spare from the little dog and the cat and the guinea pig. And I will beyour own little Petty Warblecoat. And I won't give you over to Iva Payne--Ihate her!"

CHAPTER X

The mail. 

The Petticoats rarely received mail. It wasn't done much in ButterflyCenter. So unaesthetic. 

On a tray, a lacquered lackey brought a letter to Warble. 

A white letter. Large and square--ominously square. 

Warble took tray and all and went with it to Petticoat's rooms--the letterwas addressed to him. 

She tapped but there was no answer. Listening at the door, she could hearhim splashing in his rock-hewn bath and leaping, chamois-like, from crag tocrag of his quarried bathroom. 

She sat down on the floor and waited. Petticoat's toilets were like linkedsweetness, long drawn out. 

It was late afternon, before he emerged, fresh, roseate and smiling, andimprinted a kiss on Warble's cheek that left the red stamp of a lip-stickedmouth. Warble sometimes thought if it could be arranged as a dating stamp, she could keep a record of when he had last kissed her. 

Poor little Warble--she loved her Big Bill so fondly, and he only looked onher as something fatter than his dog, a little bigger than his cat. Timidlyshe proffered the trayed letter. 

"Oh, my Heavens!" and Petticoat smote himself, hip and thigh. "Wheredid you get this? Why was I not told sooner of its arrival? To me! Andpostmarked Lake Skoodoow-abskoosis! Home of my ancestors! Woman! Why thisdelay? _Why_?"

"It came this morning, " said Warble, apologetically, "but you were in yourbath, and the door was locked. "

"But this is a most important letter. Why didn't you slip it under thedoor?"

"I couldn't, " said Warble, simply, "it was on a tray. "

"As I hoped--I mean, feared--" exclaimed Petticoat, tearing the envelopefrom the sheet, "he is dead!"

It made Warble writhe to see the devastated envelope--she always slit themneatly with a paper-knife--but she was thrilled by Petticoat's excitement. 

"A fortune!" he exclaimed. "My revered ancestor, the oldest of theCotton-Petticoats, has died and left all his wealth to me! A windfall! Nowwe can afford to have a baby and get over the Moorish Courtyard, too! Oh, Warble, ain't we got fun!"

He danced about the room, in his blue burnous and red tarbush, looking morelike a howling dervish than a tempestuous Petticoat. 

Warble thought a minute. A baby would be nice--and perhaps she could reformthat more easily than she could older people. 

"All right, " she said, "and I'll have beautiful gaternity mowns ofshuffy fliffon--I mean, fliffy shuffon, no--shiffy fluffon--oh, pleathe--pleathe--"

Warble's tongue always misbehaved when she was excited or embarrassed, butPetticoat didn't notice her. 

"I can send Roscoe Rococo after that Courtyard, " he mused, "he'll know. Thelast man I sent to Spain for a casemented façade, brought home a temple!But Roscie knows, and he'll do it proper. I don't want to run over justnow--"

 * * * * *

The baby was coming. 

Warble reveled in infant layettes and her own layouts for lying in. Shesank deeper and deeper in a sea of baby-clothes, down pillows and orrispowder. Nursery quarters were added to the house, influenced by Lucca DeliaRobbia and Fra Angelico. 

Also a few influential Madonnas. 

 * * * * *

The Butterflies came in with advice. Marigold Leathersham was dubious aboutthe wisdom of the plan, but brought a pillow of antique rose point, filledwith ostrich plumes. 

Mrs. Holm Boddy rushed over with a copy of _Poems Every Expectant MotherOught to Know_, and Lotta Munn sent a card of diamond safety pins. 

Iva Payne, the hateful thing, sent a Cubist picture of an infant fallingdownstairs, but Warble couldn't make it out so its pre-natal influencedidn't amount to much. 

Daisy Snow, innocent child, sent a beautiful edition of _How to Tell YourYoung_, a treatise of the bird-and-bee-seed-and-pollen school, and FaithLoveman sent her own marked copy of _Cooks that Have Helped Me_. 

But Warble made a face at them all, and gave their books to the SalvationArmy and read the Diary of Maggot Somebody. 

 * * * * *

Another fate slather. 

The baby was twins. 

That was the way things came to Warble--fate in big chunks--destiny incloudbursts. 

Two little red Petticoats all at once to hang on the ancestral tree. 

But Warble was not caught napping. In her efficient way, she had providedtwo bassinets, two nurseries--in fact, she had really provided three ofeverything, but the third wasn't needed, and she thriftily ordered it putaside for the present and for the future. 

Dr. Petticoat was enchanted. 

He saw the children first, asleep in their downy nests, tucked in by theskilled hands of the staff of trained nurses, and as he gazed on hisoffspring, his little tucked and quilted Petticoats, he named them Guelphand Ghibelline, after two of his illustrious ancestors and ran off at onceto put up their names at various select and inaccessible clubs. 

CHAPTER XI

Petticoat had five hobbies. Ptomaines, his collection of pieplates, Warble, his personal appearance and his Aunt Dressie. 

The last was one of the old Cotton-Petticoats, and in her younger dayshad been a flibbertigibbet. Was still, for that matter, but she flibbereddifferently now. 

She appeared unannounced, took up her favorite quarters in the N. N. W. Wing, and permeated the household. 

Tall. Slender. Smart. Sport suits. Bobbed hair. Smoked cigars. 

About fifty-five, looked forty, acted thirty. 

Fond of boxing and immediately on her arrival hunted up the butler to sparwith him, being a bit off condition. 

"I've no use for Bill, " she would say, "with his custard pie ideals, hissoft-bosomed rooms and his purple and fine _lingerie_. "

Then she'd embrace her nephew wildly, and promise to make him her heir. 

She looked at Warble appraisingly. 

"You're a tuppenny, ha'penny chit, with eyes like two holes burnt in ablanket, and a nose Mr. Micawber might have waited for, but you'll do. Youget everything you want, without effort, and that's a rare trait. What doyou think of me?"

Warble made a face at her. "Corking!" screamed Aunt Dressie, "you comestraight from heaven and you've slid into my soul. Does Bill love you?"

"Not adequately. "

"H'm. You love him?"

"Oh, yeth!"

"All right--love and grow thin, and then he'll come round. Or get a case ofptomaine poisoning--that'd help. But don't take the matter too lightly. Ifyou want your husband, get him, if you don't, then let him go. 

"I've just let mine go. You see we had a place--a sort of Vegetarian andFree Love Community proposition, but it didn't work out so we sold it. "

"And your husband?"

"Oh, he's on his own for a while. I'm deciding what to fly at next. Ialways ask nephew Bill's advice so as to know what not to do. "

"Forgot to mention it, " said Petticoat, strolling in, "but a few people arecoming to-night to help me plan for my new Color Organ. "

"What's that?" asked Warble, gazing at Petticoat in azure-eyed adoration. 

"Oh, Lord, don't you know _anything_? Tell her, Aunt Dressie!" and turningon his French heel, Petticoat walked delicately out of the room. 

"Treat him rough, Warble, you're an awful fool, " commented the older woman. "Why, a Color Organ is that marvelous new invention that plays colorinstead of sound. "

"Color--instead of--sound--"

"Yes--now don't try to understand, for you can't possibly. Go and play withthe children. "

"I won't. Tell me more about this thing. "

"I won't. You can hear it to-night, when they all talk about it. "

"What use is it?"

Aunt Dressie stared at her. "What use are you?" she said. 

Warble's brain stopped beating. 

Bump. 

 * * * * *

What use was she--she, the utilitarian, the efficient, the practical! Whatuse? Grrrhhh!

She'd show 'em! The silly bunch! Not one of them could put together thedissected beef picture in the cook-book if the cuts were separated!

"I don't care! I won't endure it!

"What's Aunt Dressie anyhow? A military blonde, with glazed chintz undies!What's Marigold Leathersham? A smart party who wears a hat!

"What's Iva Payne? Nothing but a backbone--a shad! She's about the shape ofa single rose vase! Damn her! Damn Lotta Munn and Daisy Snow, yes and MayYoung! They think they can charm my Bill off his perch with their revoltingartistic propaganda, and their schools and non-schools and neo-schools!Rubbish!"

 * * * * *

And when they came--came and talked wise and technical jargon aboutbeing endlessly enveloped in a toneless sound, about being drowned in anoverwhelming sea of blue, pure and singing, and a moment later dropped intopale amethyst which in turn deepens to a threatening purple then plungesyou into a turmoil of passionate red, always and constantly swirling andwhirling and twisting and untwisting, gliding, approaching and retreatingin that haunted and inexplicable color space--

There was more--much more--but at this point Warble rose, made acomprehensive, all-embracing and very outspoken face at them and went downto the pantry. 

"It's no use--" she groaned, "perpetual waste motion--and now waste color!What to do--what to do!

"Yet I must reform them somehow. That Iva Payne! Like a pure, palelily--but I bet her soul has got its rubbers on! Lotta Munn--spinster inname only--with her foolish pleasures and palaces--Daisy Snow, littleinnocent-making saucer eyes at my husband--oh, Bill, dear, I love you so--I wish I was pale and peakéd and wise and--yes, and artistic! So there now!

"Well, there's only two alternatives. I must reform this toy town, or bedragged down to their terrible depths myself!

"Aunt Dressie says, love and grow thin. I surely love Bill enough, but ifhe doesn't love me--maybe I'd better try somebody else. It's done here. 

"But not Trymie Icanspoon! No, he makes me sick. I guess I'll eat pickles. "

 * * * * *

In the pantry she found the under scullery maid screaming with an earache. 

"You poor child, " she said, sympathetically, "I'll run and get my husbandand he'll cure it. "

She flew back to the room where the eager group had their heads togetherover the blue prints and wash drawing of the new color organ. Pushingin between Iva and Lotta she seized Bill by the arm and said, "hurry upnow--matter of life or death--Polly, the maid--dying--urgent case--"

By that time they were down in the servant's pantry where Polly was moaningand groaning and wailing like a banshee. 

"What is it, my dear?" Big Bill asked, gently, for Polly was a very prettygirl. "Oh, my ear! It aches and stings and burns and smarts and--"

"That'll do for a beginning, " Dr. Petticoat said, rolling up his sleevesand calling for basins of sterilized water and various antiseptics anddisinfectants. 

"Can you do anything, Bill?" Warble asked anxiously, "it isn't ptomaines, you know. "

"That's the devil of it! Why couldn't the silly thing have had a decent bitof ptomaine poisoning instead of this foolish earache. But, it's more thanan earache! The bally ear has been stung--or something--anything bite you, Polly?"

"Yes, sir, a wasp. "

"She says a wathp!" exclaimed Warble. "Oh, Bill, it may mean bloodpoisoning!"

"Yes, that's true--it is--the ear will have to come off. Guess I'd bettercall in old Grandberry to operate--he's an ear specialist--"

"Oh, no, there won't be time! She may die!"

Warble was dancing about in her excitement. "You can do it, Bill. "

"All right. Get her up on the pastry table--there--that's all right. Nowwe'll take her blood pressure--here, Warb, you be taking her temperature, and send somebody for my stethoscope, and my case of instruments--and myX-ray apparatus. Now, my girl, don't cry. We'll fix you up. " Petticoatlighted a cigarette and sat down to take Polly's pulse. 

"That's right, " he said to the men who brought the things he had sent for, "scuttle back for my rubber gloves, and the chloroform outfit. Tell myman and his helpers to come down--I may need them--and bring me a cleanhandkerchief. "

"Now for an X-ray, " he said, a little later, as he adjusted his portableX-razor. 

"Oh, it's all done, " said Warble, "While you were taking her ploodbressure, I cut off her ear--"

"What with?"

"Oh, I had a boning knife and the sardine scissors. It's all right. AndI've fixed her hair lovely--in a big curly earmuff, so it will never showat all. Be quiet for a day or so, Polly, and then you'll be all right. Theonly trouble is, after this, orders will probably go in one ear and out theother--"

"You're a hummer, Warble, " Petticoat said, as they went back up stairs. 

"Yes, it had to be done quickly, you see. And it was out of your line, so Iduffed in. But one thing bothered me a little. You see, the fire was out, and the cook lighted it with kerosene, and she used such a lot--somethingmight of blew up. "

"And you knew that! You knew that two Petticoats might have been blownup--"

"Sure. Didn't you? Don't faint, pleathe!"

CHAPTER XII

Porgie Sproggins. 

Cave man. Brute. 

Hulking, enormous, shaggy-haired, prognathous jawed, a veritableCro-magnard type. Bluely unshaven and scowling. 

Warble saw him first across the room at a picture exhibition in ManleyKnight's gallery. 

His nose startled her. It was like an alligator pear--and his complexionwas like those cactus fruits that likewise infest fancy grocers' shops. A visitor from the South Sea Islands? No, he wasn't that sort. He was aFossil. Vikings were in his face, and Beef Eaters and Tarzan. 

Warble flew at him. 

"Do you like me?" she whispered. 

"No, " he growled, and she kissed his hand which was like a hand by Rodin. 

Thus does the law of compensation get in its fine work. Warble rememberedthe little boy at the public school, and she wished she could giveSproggins a red balloon. 

"What is he?" she asked of Trymie. 

"A miniature painter, " Icanspoon replied, "and a wonder! He does portraitsthat fairly make the eyes pop out of your head! He's got the world agog. "

Warble drifted back to the attraction. 

"_Do_ like me, " she said, and shot him a glance that was a bolt from theblue. 

Warble was of the appealing sex, and hardly a man was yet alive who couldresist her. 

Sproggins turned on her fiercely. He grasped her by the shoulders, pressingthem back as if he would tear her apart. 

"Let me see your soul!" he demanded, and his great face came near to peerdown through her eyes. 

"Ugh, merely blocked in, " and he flung her from him. 

"It isn't block tin!" she retorted, angrily, "it's pure gold--as you willfind out!"

He gave her another glance and two more grunts and turned away to devotehimself to Daisy Snow. 

Bing! That was the way things came to Warble. 

Fate, Kismet, Predestination--whatever it was, it came zip! boom!hell-for-leather!

"It's not only his strength but his crudeness--like petroleum or Egyptianart. 

"He can control--

"Amazingly impertinent!

"He wasn't--

"But I wish he had been--

"He will be!"

 * * * * *

She went to see him--in his studio. 

A bijou studio, fitted for a painter of miniatures. French gilt gimcracks. Garlands of fresh pink roses, tied with blue ribbons. 

"Get out, " he said, staring at her a second and then returning to hisniggling at a miniature. 

Warble made a face at him. 

"Do that again, " he commanded, reaching for a clean slice of ivory. 

A few tiny brushmarks. 

A wonder picture of Warble--made face, and all. 

"Pleathe--Pleathe--" she held out her hand, and he dropped the miniatureinto it. 

"Why don't you hit it off better with your husband?" he demanded. 

"Don't ask me things when you know everything yourself. "

"I do. I paint a miniature of a face, and I get a soul laid bare. "

"Your name? Your silly first name--"

"It's a nickname. "

"For what?"

"Areopagitica. " "Sweet--sweet--" cooed Warble, dimpling. 

"Oh, you popinjay! I wish you and I were ragpickers--"

"What!"

"It's my ambition. I don't want to be a miniature painter all my life. Butto be a ragpicker--ah, there's something to strive for! A rattlebangingcart, with jangling bells on a string across the back, a galled jade of ahorse, broken traces, mismated lines--whoa!--giddap, there! oh--Warble, come with me!"

He swooped her up in one gigantic arm, but she slipped through and runningaround, faced him impishly. 

"Would you really like me to go ridy-by in your wagon, and curl up in therags and watch the stars shoot around overhead?"

"No, better stay here--" he patted her shoulder gently, leaving a deeppurple bruise. 

"Why?"

"Better not stay here--better go home. "

"Why?"

"Goodby. "

He took her up--it seemed to her between his thumb and forefinger--and sether outside his door, promptly closing and locking it. 

 * * * * *

She heard him return to his work. She trotted home. Her husband, as shepaused to look in at his door, greeted her:

"Had a good time?"

She could not answer. 

He yawned, delicately. He was seated at his mirror, arranging his wringingwet permanent in serried rows by means of tiny combs. 

"Gooooo--oooo--oo--d night, " he said. 

That was all. Yet she was kinda mad. 

 * * * * *

A footle, twaddly love affair! No art. A silly little dumpling smatteringwith a brute beast. 

"No, he is not! He has noble impulses--ragpicking--inspired! His eyes weremisty when he spoke of it--

"A way out of Butterfly Thenter!

"A ragpicker's cart--

"A way out--"

Petticoat held her up. 

"You seem a bit gone on that tin-type fellow, Sproggins. "

"Yop. Maybe I'd better go to Atlantic Thity for a while. "

"Oh, no, you stay here. A lady's place is in the home. "

 * * * * *

So she was fairly thrown at Porgie. 

Another downpour of fate. And Warble, caught without an umbrella orrubbers. 

The night came unheralded. 

Petticoat had gone to Iva Payne's on an urgent summons--over-ripesardines--and Warble had wandered out into the moonlight. 

Petticoat, out of his new wealth, had, like Kubla Khan in Xanadu, a statelypleasure dome decreed, and in this new architectural triumph, where waterlilies and swans floated on the surface of a deep black pool, Warblerestlessly tossed in a welter of golden cushions, changing her positionevery ten seconds. 

A giant lumbered in. 

"Porgie!"

"Saw your husband speeding away--couldn't stand it, dropped in. Take meupstairs--I want to see your shoe cabinet. "

"Oh, don't spoil everything. Be my gentleman friend. Tell me about yourdreams and ideals--your rags--"

"Ah--rags--you do love me!"

"I don't know--but I love rags--sweet--so sweet--"

"You're a misfit here--as who isn't. All misfits, frauds--fakes--liars--"

"All?" Warble looked interested. 

"Yes, you little simpleton. I know!" He growled angrily. "Shall I tellyou--tell you the truth about the Butterflies?"

"Pleathe--pleathe--"

"I will! You ought to know--you gullible little fool. Well, to start with, Avery Goodman--in his true nature, he's a worldly, carnal man. His religionis a cloak, a raincoat, a mere disguise. Mrs. Charity Givens, now, she's nomore truly charitable than I am! She's shrewd and stingy, her lavish giftsto the poor are merely made for the sake of the praise and eulogy heapedupon her by her admiring friends. Manley Knight, renowed for his bravery inthe war, is an arrant coward. His soul is a thing of whining terror, hisheroism but a mask. Oh, I know--I read these people truly, when they sit tome--off guard and unconsciously betraying themselves. 

"Mrs. Holm Boddy! Pah! She's far from domestic! She yearns for the halls ofdazzling light, for gayety and even debauchery. Her devotion to home andchildren is the blackest of lies! And Iva Payne! She's no invalid! It's apose to seem interesting and delicately fragile. You should see her stuffwhen no one's looking!

"Judge Drinkwater is a secret drunkard. Lotta Munn is a pauper--anadventuress, pretending to wealth she doesn't possess. Herman True and hiswife! Zounds, if you could hear those two quarrel! Yet they pose as loversyet, and folks fall for it!"

"May Young?" Warble asked, breathlessly. 

"An old maid. Well preserved, but no chicken. And Daisy Snow! Angel-faceddébutante! Huh, she knows more than her mother ever dreamed of! You shouldsee her in my studio, at her sittings! Cocktails, cigarettes, snatches ofwild cabaret songs and dances--oh, Daisy Snow is a caution!"

"The Leathershams?"

"He's a profiteer--she--well, she was a cook--"

"Marigold! No!"

"Marigold, yes! You are a little numskull, you know. You can't see throughthese people's masks. "

"Can I reform them?"

"No, Baby Doll, you can't do that. They're dyed in the woolhypocrites--joined to their idols--let 'em alone. And as to that husband ofyours--"

"Stop! Stop! I can't stand any more! Pleathe go--pleathe--"

 * * * * *

"What're you going to do about that Tertium Quid you've annexed?" AuntDressie inquired, casually. 

"I don't know, " Warble uncertained. "He has wonderful ambitions andaspirations. He wants to be a ragpicker--a real one. "

"Ambitions are queer things, " Aunt Dressie thoughtfuled. "Now, you mightn'tthink it, but I want to be a steeple climber. "

"You take Porgie off my hands, and he'll help you--"

"Oh, no, child, every lassie has her laddie--and you saw him first. "

 * * * * *

Warble sighed. Thus was she always thrown at Porgie's head. 

Fate, like a sluicing torrent carried her ever on. Beware, beware, therapids are below you!

Thus Conscience, Prudence, Wisdom, Policy, Safety First--all the deadlyvirtues called her. 

Did she heed?

As the sea's self should heed a pebble-cast. 

 * * * * *

On a June evening, when Petticoat was called to Iva Payne's, Porgie came. 

Bowed in by a thin red line of footmen, he found Warble in the moon-parlor. She wore a picture frock of _point d'esprit_ and tiny pink rosebuds, andlittle pink socks and sandals. 

"Come out on the Carp Pond, " he muttered, picking her up and stuffing herin his pocket. "Nobody will see us. "

He seated her in the stern of a shallop and took the golden oars. Three ofhis long sweeping strokes took them a mile up stream and they drifted back. Porgie talked steadily and uninterruptedly. He told her in detail of hisragpicking plans and how perfectly she would fit in. 

"Think of it!" he boomed. "No fetters of fashion, no gyves of convention. Free--free as air--free verse, free love, free lunch--ah, goroo--goroo!"

"Goroo--" agreed Warble, "sweet--sweet--"

"Sweet yourself!" roared Porgie, and grabbed her all up in his gorilla-likearms just as a ringing, musical, "Ship ahoy!" sounded on their ears. 

"Hello there, Warbie!"

She knew then it was Petticoat. 

"Having a walk?" he inquired, casually. 

"Yop, " she casualed back. 

He pulled his skiff up alongside, threw Porgie into the deep pool andsnatched Warble in beside himself. 

"Time to go home, " he said, cheerfully. "Good night, Sproggins. "

He took her into the house through the conservatory, paused to pluck andtwine a wreath of tiny pink rosebuds for her, adjusted it on her rathertouseled curls, and took her out to the Moorish Courtyard. 

"Now, Warb, what about the baboon?" "I want to go ragpick with him and bepag-rickers together. Can I? Pleathe--"

"Nixy. Now, you hark at me. I'm the real thing--a good oldCotton-Petticoat--birth, breeding and boodle. Your Porgie person has noneof these--"

"But he loves me!" Warble wailed. 

"Yes, 'cause he can't get you. Go along with him, and then see where you'llbe! No, my Soufflée, you hear me! Can the Porgie and stick to your own BigBill--your own legit. "

"But you don't love me--"

"Oh, I do--in my quaint married-man fashion. And--ahem--I hate to mentionit--but--"

"I know--and I _am_ banting--and exercising, and rolling downstairs and allthat. "

"Well, we're married, and divorces are not the novelty they once were--solet's stay put. "

"Kiss me, then--"

He brushed a butterfly kiss across her left eyebrow, and together theystrolled back into the house, and as he went up to bed, Warble went down tothe pantry to see about something. 

CHAPTER XIII

"I d-don't belong to Butterfly Thenter, " Warble sobbed, "I don'tb-belong--and I-m g-going away--"

"All right, " Petticoat said, cheerfully, "how long'll you be gone?"

"It may be four yearth and it may be eleven--"

"Oh, come, now, not all that time! It isn't done. "

"You d-don't underthtand--I'm going to find my plathe in the world--I don'tbelong here. "

"All right. Can I go 'long?"

"No; you stay here. I'm--oh, don't you thee--I'm leaving you!"

"Oh, that's it?"

"You'll have the girls to amuse you--"

"What girls?"

"Iva and Lotta and Daisy and May Young--"

"They're not girls--they're married women--"

"What!"

"Sure they are. They don't live with their husbands all the time--they'repretty modern, you know. They have separate establishments, but they'refriendly, pally, and even a heap in love with each other. "

"I don't believe it--" "Fact, all the same. Where you going Warble--thatis, if you care to tell. "

"I'm going where I can live a busy, useful life--not a Butterfly existence, with nothing to occupy my mind but art and hifalutin lingo! I can't expressmyself with long candles and Oriental junk! I'm going--oh, I don't knowwhere I'm going, but I'm taking the next train out of Butterfly Thenter!"

"Warble--haven't I treated you right? Haven't you had enough to eat? TheCotton-Petticoats have always been called good providers--"

"It isn't that, Bill, dear--it's that--you don't love me very much--"

Petticoat looked at her. His eyes traveled up and down from her goldencurls to her golden slippers, and then crossways, from one plump shoulderto the other. 

"Goodby, Warble, " he said. 

 * * * * *

That's the way things came to Warble. Freedom! All at once, in unlimitedmeasure--freedom!

Baffled in her attempts to reform Butterfly Center, having fallen down onthe job of replacing Art by Utility, she went, undaunted and indomitable, on her way. 

 * * * * *

Hoboken. 

Work in a pickle foundry. Cucumbers, small onions, green tomatoes, cauliflower, tiny string beans, red peppers, mustard, vinegar, cauldrons, boiling, seething fumes, spicy mists, pungent odors, bottles, jars, labels, chow-chow, picalilli, smarting tongue, burning palate, inflamed oesophagus, disordered stomach, enteritis. 

That was the way things came to Warble. And she made good. Her position wasthat of a pickle taster. 

At first, only of the little gherkins, then promoted through mediumcucumbers, to the glory of full-fledged Dills. 

A conscientious taster--faithful, diligent, she reached the amazing speedof forty pickles a minute, and all done well. 

Of course it told on her. Also, her heartaches told on her. 

Lonely. Homesick for Bill, for Ptomaine Haul, for the gallery ofPetticoats. 

 * * * * *

Yet: A glorious soft summer afternoon. 

Warble alone in a room with a big, forceful looking man. 

The door is closed, and the gentle breeze scarce stirs the opaque whitecurtains. 

In the depths of a great arm-chair, Warble, her lovely head upturned seesthe eager, earnest face of the man. Closer he draws and a faint pink flushdyes Warble's cheek. His arm is round her soft neck, his hand holds herdimpled chin. 

With a little sigh, Warble's blue eyes close, her scarlet lips part andthough she wants to struggle she dare not, For he is a determined man, and a dentist will have his fill. 

Petticoat came to see her in Hoboken after she had been there a year. Unexpected and unannounced, he strode in to the pickle foundry and graspedthe fat arm of the girl who worked next to Warble. 

"Come along, " he said, not unkindly, but the girl screamed. 

"Beg pardon, " Petticoat said, nonchalantly, "sorry. Thought you were mywife. Know where I can find her?"

A slim, fairy-like Warble turned to greet him. 

Petticoat couldn't believe his eyes. That sylph, that thread, thatwisp--his Warble--his one time plump wife!"

"Gee, you're great!" he cried, "I'm for you!"

She got leave from the factory for a couple of years, with privilege ofextension. 

"I don't want to impose on your kindness, " he said, "but I'd like to chasearound Hoboken and take in the sights, I've never been here before. ""There's a Bairns' Restaurant, " said Warble, shyly, "we might go there. "

 * * * * *

They did. In a taxicab. He held her in his lap and told her the news. 

He had had his own rooms done over. Mediaeval setting. Romanesque arches. Stained-glass windows. Sculptured cloisters. Good work. 

"How are the twins?" she asked, timidly. "Pleathe. "

"Fine. Miss you terribly--we all do. Butterfly Center mourns your loss. Spring a come-back, won't you, Warble?"

"You want me?"

"More than anything in the world! I'm mad about you! You beauty! You ravingbeauty! You'll be the talk of the world this winter. Gee, Warble, how I candress you, now you're thin! Won't Beer be astounded!"

 * * * * *

That's the way things came to Warble. 

The only thing she wanted, her husband's love, now flung at her feet inunstinted measure, pressed down and running over--love, slathers of it--allfor her! It was sweet--a pleasant change from pickles. 

"How's everybody?"

"Here and there. Iva's gone. "

"Thank Heaven! Where'd she go?"

"Dunno. Her husband took her off. Jealous of me. " "H'm. And Daisy Snow?"

"Gone into the movies. She grew too heavy for society. May Young's in theOld Ladies' Home. "

"And Lotta Munn?"

"Murdered by her husband. He had to kill her--she wouldn't support him. TheLeathershams are in the poorhouse, and Mrs. Charity Givens has bought theirplace. Want to go on a second honeymoon? Round the world?"

"Yop. "

 * * * * *

They went. One night, sitting on top of the Taj Mahal, 'neath the Blue Moonof Persia, Warble cried, "Shall I go back to Butterfly Thenter--or shall I not?"

"Spin a toddletop, " said Petticoat, taking one from his pocket. 

She spun it and it came up pickle foundry. 

So Warble said, "All right, dear, I'll go home with you whenever you'reready, " and she kissed him slenderly. 

 * * * * *

Ptomaine Haul. 

Two Petticoats arriving. A happy Warble sprang from the car and seemedfairly to skim up the steps. She passed, unnoticing, the pantry door, and flew up to her own rooms which had been done over to suit her newslenderness. 

"Beer, " she cried, "look at me!"

"Maddum!" cried the astounded Beer. "What done it?"

"Unrequited love and pickles. I can wear sport clothes now!"

"Maddum can wear anything or nothing!" declared Beer triumphantly. 

That night, Warble, her hands behind her, wafted into Petticoat's room. 

He sat on the edge of his bed, running lingerie ribbons in his underwear. 

"I'll stay, always, " Warble said, sidling up to him. "And I'm happy. But... "

"Look out! Don't let the cat get that bolt of ribbon to play with!"

She smoothed his pillows and patted his sheets, while Petticoat glanced ather a little suspiciously, from under his gabled eyebrows. 

"But I don't say that Butterfly Center is worth the ground it's built on. Idon't admit that Ptomaine Street is as useful as a Hoboken alley. I don'tadmit that Art is any good at all. I've fought like a tiger and I didn'tmake a dent on the Butterflies--but, I _have_ grown thin!" "Sure, you betyou have!" said Petticoat, threading ribbon into his gold bodkin. "Well, kiss me good night--here you--I see you! Don't you put those caterpillarsin my bed!"

THE END