Of all the plays for me to have chosen, "The Smash" was the worst. It was the first night, and the present Mrs. Underbunk, formerly Amy Lightly, of the "Whoop-de-doodle" company, was making her début in the legitimate drama; so, eying us from the dark recesses of the box across the house was Joshua himself. My mind reverted to that Mrs. Topper-Tompkins who last summer invaded Newport from Chicago, and had Jack Tattler to dinner with both Mrs. Bobbie Dingingham and Mrs. Willie Timpleton. These things will happen nowadays, and we must expect them and make the best of them. Mrs. Underbunk carried herself beautifully, and even went so far as to applaud Amy Lightly very generously. The others in our box noticed it, and when she was not looking they would get their heads together and discuss her conduct with enthusiastic admiration. The Tommy Tattlers, of course, knew her, but Winthrop Jumpkin, 7th, and Constance Twitter had only heard of her. Jumpkin, by the way, is a new friend of mine, a very decent fellow, though poor; being from Boston, and tracing his ancestry without a break to the Puritan who did not come to this country in the _Mayflower_. I had asked him to match Miss Twitter, but he did not seem to appreciate the opportunity I had given him to meet many millions, and talked incessantly to Mrs. Underbunk, leaving me entirely to Mrs. Tattler. Finally, by getting him nervous about his fur overcoat I engineered myself into his chair, so when he returned to report the precious garment safe, I was too deeply engrossed to notice that I had evicted him. This was between the acts, of course, during the storm of calls for the author. To my astonishment, who should come on the stage but Julius Hogginson Fairfield, the play being only a dramatization of his great historical novel. Mrs. Underbunk clapped wildly. "Don't you remember him?" she whispered, as he was making the usual author's speech refusing a laurel-wreath. "He is the clever man we met at the Duffs'." "Ah," said I, pretending that it had just occurred to me. "The fellow with the queer shoes and the three mother-of-pearl studs." "Society," said she prettily, "should make allowances for genius." "Genius," said I, "should make allowances to society. The best nine tailors living cannot fit a genius. Is there any pall on a properly conducted social function like the entrance of a man who wears congress gaiters and mother-of-pearl studs?" "Ah, Mr. Mudison, you should look at the brain," she protested, shaking her fan at me. "But the brains should be well served," said I. "Why should we always have to have them garnished with hair, with lay-down collars, with awry coats?" "It is true," she answered, after a moment of thought. "I should not care to have them around all the time, but occasionally they give variety."