And then a daring manager went all this one better. He posed his women as bronze figures, with nothing between them and the gaze of the audience but bronze powder. The sensation lasted but a short time, spectators not caring for mulatoes when there were white forms to be seen at the same price. Next came the "Wedding Night," which I saw in Paris, and which still seems to me comparatively sweet and innocent--and it was suppressed, perhaps for that very reason. And now we have "Charmion"--meat for strong minds, but not, I fear, for the average young man. What will come next? I would not dare predict, but really within ten years we may expect anything. "The leaves are falling--even the fig leaves," says George Meredith. They have fallen long ago from most of the male statues in European galleries, and there at least I am in accord with the sculptors. Perfect nudity never stirred the beast in any sane man. Why should we not have afternoon or evening receptions by professional models in their native undress? It would be better for morality than the ingenious titillation of the senses induced by your Edwinas and your Charmions! Confound Charmion, any way! She spoiled a night for me that I needed for refreshing sleep. In my brief snatches of slumber I was with those silly fellows in the front rows, clutching wildly in the air for the garters she flung from her perch above our heads. CHAPTER IV. YOU ARE A HOPELESS SCAMP. Without even waiting for letters at the Herald office, in answer to my advertisement, I went on Saturday morning to Cook & Son's, on Broadway, and engaged two staterooms on the steamship "Madiana," of the Quebec SS. Company's line, to sail January 12. I found that I could secure both rooms, and, if it proved that I needed but one, the amount of passage money paid in advance--one hundred dollars--could be applied to mine alone. This pleased the remnant of Scotch blood left in my veins, for my relations have always said I "favored" my mother's side of the family, and she was a native of France. Though careless enough with money, I did not wish to pay for a stateroom that nobody would occupy, and there was a possibility that I would go alone, after all. The clerk, an affable fellow, promised to hold the extra room until the 5th of January, and to write me when it became necessary to put up the balance of the price or surrender the rights I had in it. I thought, on the whole, it was a sensible business transaction. "What name shall I register for the lady's room?" he asked, taking up a pen. "I am uncertain," I said, hesitating. "There are several of the family, and I don't know which it will be finally." "I will call it 'Miss Camran,' then," he said. There seemed no objection to this, and he wrote the name in his book.