After all, it is the brains that rise like cream in the social crock. There are plenty of people in this town with just as much money as the Radigans, but, struggle though they may, they will stay down. They swim dog-fashion, then drown. Their palaces rise on Riverside Drive, and even Harlem knows their countenances. But the Radigans have brains. They never seem to be swimming for dear life; they float up on their money. Now floating seemed so easy, so blissful. They were able to dispense with one of the Rollers Club fellows for the dinner before the dance and to put in his place young Plumstone Smith, which was a pleasant change for all, so we sat down at the table, besides the new fellow, the Radigans, Miss Constance Mint Wherry, Miss Veal, Miss Hope Van Rundoun, the other Rollers Club fellow and myself. And such a dinner! The Radigans never do things half-way. For each of the young women there was an enormous bunch of American Beauties, and as the men could not take flowers, Radigan loaded our cases with cigars that the gods might smoke. They did not churn us all up in a Fifth Avenue stage, as is the custom in some circles, but rolled us downtown, swiftly, gently, in their new electric carryall. Mrs. Radigan had come to her own! You should have seen her as she stood in that august row of patronesses, right between Mrs. Plumstone Smith and Mrs. Stuyvesant Mint. They simply looked like the setting. She seemed to have been born and raised right in that spot, so natural did she appear. Mrs. Plumstone Smith let me tip up one of her gloved hands, and then recognized the existence of her son. Mrs. Radigan made a one-quarter bow at us and smiled vacantly, then turned and whispered to Mrs. Mint. But she thawed out later. I found her sitting behind the favor-counter, a part in a scene that called to my mind a street-bazaar in Cairo, though I did not suggest it to her as I led her forth into the mazes of the dance. Mrs. Radigan hops. Mrs. Radigan loves dancing. Mrs. Radigan tells you to stop when you are tired--she can keep on forever. What an awful combination! The first time we hopped by that row of immaculately clad statuary known as the "stags" I recognized every face distinctly, and even saw the Rollers Club fellow wink at me. The second time around, young Plumstone Smith winked. At the third circuit two or three of the stags had their heads together and seemed to be looking our way and commenting. On the fourth, Tumbleton Wherry, who was leading the cotillon, stopped running around clapping his hands as if he were shooing chickens, and stood in the centre of the room just gazing our way. The last time I saw the stags they seemed to my distorted vision just a long band of black and white. I am positive that Mrs. Radigan, in the early ages of her existence--ages now remote--danced to the music of a hurdy-gurdy.