We both laughed at the recollection, though I had not laughed at the time. I was in fear lest Billy be relegated to the cellar where he would cry out his puppy heart. But Mamma Heward was never in a bad humour. She was all kindness and consideration ... and now she was getting old and could no longer please an exacting clientèle. The cost of living had gone up; rents were higher; but the little old lady could get no more for her rooms. To make both ends meet she dispensed first with one servant, then with another, until she and one frail daughter shared the entire work of the house. It was no easy matter to cook and serve a dozen breakfasts in the rooms at any and all hours; to cater and prepare meals and then to wait up until midnight that the players might have a hot supper after the performance. How many of those whom she had tided over the hard times, how many who had "stood her up" for a board bill, or whom she had nursed in times of illness, remembered her now in her time of need? "I'm not finding fault," she said softly, breaking a long silence while we looked beyond the pictures. "I don't blame them for not coming here to live ... only--I wish they'd drop in to see me sometimes when they come to town, just for auld lang syne...." When I told Will of my visit he looked very serious. I am sure he felt sorry we had not gone back to her. The next day we went together to see her. Will took her a bottle of port wine. Later he sent her two seats for the performance and I promised her that the next time we came to Chicago we should stay with her, even if Will were a star.... CHAPTER X Will's friends certainly provided one continual round of pleasure, if dissipation may be classed under that head. I was brought to wonder how they found time for "the petty round of irritating concerns and duties" of life. They appeared always to be dining or lunching out. One met them in the various restaurants at all hours, drinking round upon round of cocktails, and polishing them off with cognac. The Pompeian room at the Annex between five and six in the afternoon is Chicago typified. The artistic gentleman who conceived the decorative scheme of the Pompeian room had a sly sense of the eternal fitness of things. He also knew his Chicago. The great bacchic amphoræ--copies of those classic receptacles utilized as relief stations by old Romans who had wined too well--are concrete reminders of his sense of humour. I have seen more women in Chicago under the influence of liquor than in any other city in the world. This probably accounts for their low standard of morality as well as for the emotional debauches in which they indulge.