But that text rang in my brain all afternoon, and by the time we got home from the Southshore Club I had such a splitting headache I could not appear for dinner. They sent to my room all kinds of medicine and stimulants to brace me up for bridge, but I grew steadily worse. Even a nice little note from Miss Wherry, declaring that she forgave me for my bad hands of the evening before, and was waiting for me to join her in having revenge, failed to stir me. This morning I felt much better, though poor. I came up to town in the train with one Rollers Club fellow and he was feeling rather blue, as he had to carry Miss Wherry against Radigan and Miss Van Rundoun. He made my check payable to the Radigans. CHAPTER IV _In the New Box at the Opera_ The Radigans have a box at the Metropolitan on even Tuesdays, odd matinées, and every third Thursday. They asked me to support them on their first appearance in grand opera, and as I had just sold Radigan a Harlem apartment-house, the Ophelia, of course I had to accept, and, to be frank, it was a most enjoyable evening. The box is an excellent one. It belongs to a branch of the Plaster family, who are abroad this winter and have sublet it. It was a bit full that night, as Mrs. Radigan seemed to have asked most of her friends, but by the help of two extra chairs we all got in. There were the Radigans, and Miss Veal, of course, with myself and the two Rollers Club fellows, Miss Constance Mint Wherry, and a Miss Mignonette Klapper, a rare beauty, who really had no right to be there as she is only a pupil at a finishing school and is not even out in Milwaukee. I must admit that the girl is charming, not at all breezy as we always picture these Westerners, but very soft and insinuating, with most expressive eyes and teeth. She kept me very much occupied after I succeeded in shutting off one of the Rollers Club men and making him fight with the other over Miss Veal. The opera, I think, was "Tannhäuser," though I paid so little attention to it that I cannot be sure. In the criticism of it in my paper next day I discovered this enlightening paragraph: "Box 506--J. John Radigan, Mrs. Radigan, Miss Veal, Miss Wherry, Miss Klapper, Messrs. Brown, Jones, and Robinson." Again, a little farther down in the criticism: "Mrs. Radigan, cold-cream-colored silk, diamond tiara, diamond collarette, diamonds."