I paused long enough upstairs to exchange hats with the other Rollers Club fellow, as I saw my new one on top of his coat and remembered that after the opera the other night I had been left with a derelict headgear with many bald spots. Then I went softly away, down the gloomy awning, over the muddied red carpet. I had no trouble getting out, but I prophesy that next time I shall have to fight to reach the street. CHAPTER VI _The Monday Cotillons_ A few days ago I received under the tandem rampant a hurried summons from Mrs. Radigan. She was dying to see me, so I closed up my desk somewhat earlier than usual and turned my toes toward Billionville. I had never before seen her so beaming. She reminded me that Mrs. Tucker Ten Broeck had died some weeks ago. Well, she had been asked to take the vacant place among the patronesses of the Monday Cotillon. Now, I realized that society that is really worth knowing frowns on these subscription things, but considering that the previous generation of Radigans had probably waited at the Mondays, it seemed that the present generation was soaring when it danced there. Moreover, there are many thousands of simple, unassuming women in town who would give their heads to appear in that list of eminently respectable names. The Mondays looked down on the Tuesdays, and the Tuesdays looked blank and never heard of the Fridays, and as Mrs. Radigan had, in one wild leap, gone over the Fridays into the Mondays, there was indeed cause for congratulation. In a year or two, with her money, she can raise her eyebrows when the Mondays are mentioned, just as she does now when we speak of the Tuesdays or Fridays. She has had wonderful luck in skipping intermediate social degrees, and at the present rate she will soon take the thirty-third and become a grand commander. I could not understand how she worked it out so quickly. Mrs. Radigan is inclined to regard the decease of Mrs. Ten Broeck as an intervention of Providence. It seems that on her demand Radigan--to use her own expression--has become "a patron of the church." He is now a vestryman at St. Edwards, a director of the Hydropathic Hospital, vice-president of the Improvident Pawning Society, and a heavy stockholder in the Underground Café Company. Mrs. Radigan is herself a manageress of the "Home for Aged but Respectable Unmarried Women." With Radigan passing the plate every Sunday with Major Plaster, and Mrs. Radigan constantly telephoning to Mrs. Plumstone Smith about the home, it just had to come.