Mrs. Raffles: Being the Adventures of an Amateur Crackswoman — John Shaqi
Mrs. Raffles: Being the Adventures of an Amateur CrackswomanBangs, John Kendrick
General
Mrs. Raffles: Being the Adventures of an Amateur Crackswoman
Bangs, John Kendrick
Hornung, E. W. (Ernest William), 1866-1921 -- Parodies, imitations, etc.; Jewel thieves -- Fiction
"Gad!" I ejaculated. "Wall Street would have been an infant in your
hands."
Well, the fateful day came. Henriette, to do her justice, had herself
spared no pains or expense to make the thing a success. I doubt if the
gardens of the Constant-Scrappes ever looked so beautiful. There were
flowers everywhere, and hanging from tree to tree from one end of their
twenty acres to the other were long and graceful garlands of
multicolored electric lights that when night came down upon the fete
made the scene appear like a veritable glimpse of fairyland. Everybody
that is anybody was there, with a multitude of others who may always be
counted upon to pay well to see their names in print or to get a view of
society at close range. Of course there was music of an entrancing sort,
the numbers being especially designed to touch the flintiest of hearts,
and Henriette was everywhere. No one, great or small, in that vast
gathering but received one of her gracious smiles, and it is no
exaggeration to say that half of the flowers purchased at rates that
would make a Fifth Avenue tailor hang his head in shame, were bought by
the gallant gentlemen of Newport for presentation to the hostess of the
day. These were immediately placed on sale again so that on the flower
account the receipts were perceptibly swelled.
A more festal occasion has never been known even in this festal
environment. The richest of the land vied with one another in making the
affair a vast financial success. The ever gallant Tommy Dare left the
scene twenty times for the mere privilege of paying his way in and out
that many times over at ten dollars each way. The doll which Senator
Defew had named was also the cause of much merriment, since when all was
over and some thirteen thousand five hundred dollars had been taken in
for guesses, it was found that the senator had forgotten the name he had
given it. When the laughter over this incident had subsided, Henriette
suggested that it be put up at auction, which plan was immediately
followed out, with the result that the handiwork of the duchess of
Snarleyow was knocked down for eight thousand six hundred and
seventy-five dollars to a Cincinnati brewer who had been trying for
eight years to get his name into the Social Register.
* * * * *
"Thank goodness, that's over," said Henriette when the last guest had
gone and the lights were out. "It has been a very delightful affair, but
towards the end it began to get on my nerves. I am really appalled,
Bunny, at the amount of money we have taken in."
"Did you get the full one hundred thousand dollars?" I asked.
"Full hundred thousand?" she cried, hysterically. "Listen to this." And
she read the following memorandum of the day's receipts:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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