Promptly at quarter of ten P. M. Mrs. Brady descended the steps of the Elevated. She purchased from the newsdealer in the cubbyhole beneath them a next month’s magazine and a to-morrow morning’s paper and, with these tucked under one plump arm, she walked. She walked two blocks north on Sixth Avenue; turned and went west. But not far west. Westward half a block only, to the place where the gay green awning marked Club Français paints a stripe of shade across the glimmering sidewalk. Under this awning Mrs. Brady halted briefly, to remark to the six-foot doorman that it looked like rain and to await his performance of his professional duty. When the small green door yawned open, she sighed deeply and plodded in. The foyer was a blackness, an airless velvet blackness like the inside of a jeweller’s box. Four drum-shaped lamps of golden silk suspended from the ceiling gave it light (a very little) and formed the jewels: gold signets, those, or cuff-links for a giant. At the far end of the foyer there were black stairs, faintly dusty, rippling upward toward an amber radiance. Mrs. Brady approached and ponderously mounted the stairs, clinging with one fist to the mangy velvet rope that railed their edge. From the top, Miss Lena Levin observed the ascent. Miss Levin was the checkroom girl. She had dark-at-the-roots blonde hair and slender hips upon which, in moments of leisure, she wore her hands, like buckles of ivory loosely attached. This was a moment of leisure. Miss Levin waited behind her counter. Row upon row of hooks, empty as yet, and seeming to beckon--wee curved fingers of iron--waited behind her. “Late,” said Miss Levin, “again.” “Go wan!” said Mrs. Brady. “It’s only ten to ten. _Whew!_ Them _stairs_!” She leaned heavily, sideways, against Miss Levin’s counter, and, applying one palm to the region of her heart, appeared at once to listen and to count. “Feel!” she cried then in a pleased voice. Miss Levin obediently felt. “Them stairs,” continued Mrs. Brady darkly, “with my bad heart, will be the death of me. Whew! Well, dearie? What’s the news?” “You got a paper,” Miss Levin languidly reminded her. “Yeah!” agreed Mrs. Brady with sudden vehemence. “I got a paper!” She slapped it upon the counter. “An’ a lot of time I’ll get to _read_ my paper, won’t I now? On a Saturday night!” She moaned. “Other nights is bad enough, dear knows--but _Saturday_ nights! How I dread ’em! Every Saturday night I say to my daughter, I say, ‘Geraldine, I can’t,’ I say, ‘I can’t go through it again, an’ that’s all there is to it,’ I say. ‘I’ll _quit_!’ I say. An’ I _will_, too!” added Mrs. Brady firmly, if indefinitely. Miss Levin, in defense of Saturday nights, mumbled some vague something about tips.