He was a mighty good looking chap, smartly attired, and if you care for details, he wore a heliotrope scarf in which there gleamed a superb black pearl for which he had paid a superb price. "Can you beat it!" he muttered as he climbed the stairs to the lobby and mingled with the throng that stood about in stiff groups, idly chattering and looking as if they bored one another to the verge of desperation. "Can you beat it!" he exclaimed again, fairly biting off the words. So vehemently occupied was he with his chagrin and annoyance that he stamped heavily upon the pet corn of a retired rear admiral, rudely bumped a Roumanian duchess, kicked the pink poodle of a famous prima donna and brought up with a thud against the heroic brawn and muscle of the house detective, who stood as solidly in the middle of the lobby as if he had taken root somewhere down in the foundations. "Can I beat what?" asked the house detective frigidly. My, but he was an angry young man, and he fairly snarled at the magnificent individual he had collided with: "Beat a drum, beat an egg, beat around the bush--go as far as you like--beat your grandmother if you prefer!" The granite faced house detective was not used to that sort of treatment; furthermore it distinctly galled him to be asked to beat his grandmother, whom he recalled as an estimable old lady who made an odd noise when she ate soup, owing to an absence of teeth. "What's that you said about my grandmother?" he said, bridling. "Bother your grandmother," shot back the insolent retort, whereat the lordly house detective plucked the young man by the arm. "Staggerin' an' loony talk don't go in the Ritz," he said under his breath. "You've been havin' too much." "Preposterous!" exclaimed the young man, vainly endeavoring to shake his arm free. "Are you a guest of the house?" demanded the immaculately garbed minion of the Ritz. "I am, so kindly remove the pair of pincers you are crushing my arm with." "What's your name?" "I don't know--that is, I've forgotten." "Now I know you need lookin' after. Come over here to the desk." The house detective had manifested no more outward passion than a block of ice, and so adroit was he in marching the young man to the desk that not an eye in the lobby was attracted to the little scene. The young man was at first inclined to make a fuss about it and demand an abject apology for this untoward treatment. The absurdity of his predicament, however, stirred his sense of humor and he was meekly docile when his captor arraigned him at the desk and addressed one of the clerks: "Do you know this young man, Mr. Horton?" "Why, yes, Reagan--this is Mr. Smith--why"-- "That's it--Smith!" cried the young man. "How could I ever forget that name? Thomas Smith, isn't it, Mr. Horton, or is it James?" "Thomas, of course; at least that's the way you registered, Mr. Smith--Thomas Smith and valet." The clerk's eyebrows started straight up his head.