Never is Society with the big, big S more flattered than when they
are bidden to partake of good cheer at the distinguished and
hospitable residence of Mr. and Mrs. Charles L. McKelvey as they
were last night. Set in its spacious lawns and landscaping, one of
the notable sights crowning Royal Ridge, but merry and homelike
despite its mighty stone walls and its vast rooms famed for their
decoration, their home was thrown open last night for a dance in
honor of Mrs. McKelvey’s notable guest, Miss J. Sneeth of
Washington. The wide hall is so generous in its proportions that it
made a perfect ballroom, its hardwood floor reflecting the charming
pageant above its polished surface. Even the delights of dancing
paled before the alluring opportunities for tête-à-têtes that
invited the soul to loaf in the long library before the baronial
fireplace, or in the drawing-room with its deep comfy armchairs,
its shaded lamps just made for a sly whisper of pretty nothings all
a deux; or even in the billiard room where one could take a cue
and show a prowess at still another game than that sponsored by
Cupid and Terpsichore.
There was more, a great deal more, in the best urban journalistic style
of Miss Elnora Pearl Bates, the popular society editor of the
_Advocate-Times_. But Babbitt could not abide it. He grunted. He
wrinkled the newspaper. He protested: “Can you beat it! I’m willing to
hand a lot of credit to Charley McKelvey. When we were in college
together, he was just as hard up as any of us, and he’s made a million
good bucks out of contracting and hasn’t been any dishonester or bought
any more city councils than was necessary. And that’s a good house of
his--though it ain’t any ‘mighty stone walls’ and it ain’t worth the
ninety thousand it cost him. But when it comes to talking as though
Charley McKelvey and all that booze-hoisting set of his are any blooming
bunch of of, of Vanderbilts, why, it makes me tired!”
Timidly from Mrs. Babbitt: “I would like to see the inside of their
house though. It must be lovely. I’ve never been inside.”
“Well, I have! Lots of--couple of times. To see Chaz about business
deals, in the evening. It’s not so much. I wouldn’t _want_ to go there
to dinner with that gang of, of high-binders. And I’ll bet I make a
whole lot more money than some of those tin-horns that spend all they
got on dress-suits and haven’t got a decent suit of underwear to their
name! Hey! What do you think of this!”
Mrs. Babbitt was strangely unmoved by the tidings from the Real Estate
and Building column of the _Advocate-Times_:
Ashtabula Street, 496--J. K. Dawson to
Thomas Mullally, April 17, 15.7 × 112.2,
mtg. $4000................ Nom.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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