In the model-room, a long, narrow slit, roaringly ventilated by a whirling machine, lined in frocks suspended from hangers, and just wide enough for two very perfect thirty-sixes to stand abreast, August fell heavily. So heavily that occasionally a cloak-model, her lot to show next December's conceit in theater wraps, fainted on the show-dais; or a cloth-of-gold evening gown, donned for the twentieth time that sweltering day, would suddenly, with its model, crumple, a glittering huddle, to the floor. Upon Miss Hattie Becker, who within the narrow slit had endured eight of these Augusts with only two casual faints and a swoon or two nipped in the bud, this ninth August came in so furiously that, sliding out of her sixth showing of a cloth-of-silver and blue-fox opera wrap, a shivering that amounted practically to chill took hold of her. "Br-r-r!" she said, full of all men's awe at the carbon-dioxide paradox. "I'm so hot I'm cold!" Miss Clarice Delehanty slid out of a shower of tulle-of-gold dancing-frock and into an Avenue gown of rough serge. The tail of a very arched eyebrow threatened, and then ran down in a black rill. "If Niagara Falls was claret lemonade, You'd see me beat it to a watery grave." "That'll be enough canary-talk out of you, Clare. Hand me my shirt-waist there off the hook." "Didn't Kess say we had to show Keokuk the line before lunch?" "If the King of England was buying ermine sport coats this morning, I wouldn't show 'em before I had a cold cut and a long drink in me. Hurry! Hand me my waist, Clare, before the girls come in from showing the bridesmaid line." Miss Delehanty flung the garment down the narrow length of the room. "Minneapolis don't know it, but after this showing he's going to blow me to the frappiest little lunch on the Waldorf roof." Miss Becker buttoned her flimsy blouse with three pearl beads down its front, wiping constantly at a constantly dampening brow. "You'd shove over the Goddess of Liberty if you thought she had her foot on a meal ticket." "Yes; and if I busted her, you could build a new one on the lunch money you've saved in your time." "Waldorf! You've got a fine chance with Minneapolis. You mean the Automat, and two spoons for the ice-cream." Miss Delehanty adjusted a highly eccentric hat, a small green velvet, outrageously tilted off the rear of its _bandeau_, and a wide black streamer flowing down over one shoulder. It was the match to the explosive effect of the _trotteur_ gown. She was Fashion's humoresque, except that Fashion has no sense of humor. Very presently Minneapolis would appraise her at two hundred and seventy-five as is. Miss Delehanty herself came cheaper. "Say, Hattie, don't let being an old man's darling go to your head. The grandchildren may issue an injunction." A flare of crimson rushed immediately over Miss Becker's face, spreading down into her neck.