"Tolerates?" laughed the Idiot. "What a word to use! Tolerate? Why, society encourages, because society shares the benefits. Take this especial vacation of mine. Society had two five-o'clock teas, four of the swellest dinners you ever sat down to, a cotillon where the favors were of solid silver and real ostrich feathers, a whole day's clam-bake on Reggie's steam-yacht, with automobile-runs and coaching-trips galore. Nobody ever declines one of Reggie's invitations, because what he has from a society point of view is the best the market affords. Why, the floral decorations alone at the _fête champêtre_ he gave in honor of the De Boodles at his villa last Thursday night must have cost five thousand dollars, and everything was on the same scale. I don't believe a cent less than seventy-five hundred dollars was burned up in the fire-works, and every lady present received a souvenir of the occasion that cost at least one hundred dollars." "Your story doesn't quite hold together," said Mr. Brief. "If your friend Reggie has a villa and a steam-yacht, and automobiles and coaches, and gives _fêtes champêtres_ that cost fifteen or twenty thousand dollars, I don't see why he has to make himself a booster of inferior people who want to get into society. What does he gain by it? It surely isn't sport to do a thing like that, and I should think he'd find it a dreadful bore." "The man must live," said the Idiot. "He boosts for a living." "When he has the wealth of Monte Cristo at his command?" demanded Mr. Brief. "Reggie hasn't a cent to his name," said the Idiot. "I've already told you he owes us eight hundred dollars he can't pay." "Then who in thunder pays for the villa and the lot and all those hundred-dollar souvenirs?" asked the Doctor. "Why, this year, the De Boodles," said the Idiot. "Last year it was Colonel and Mrs. Moneybags, whose daughter, Miss Fayette Moneybags, is now clinching the position Reggie sold her at Newport over in London, whither Reggie has consigned her to his sister, an impecunious American duchess--the Duchess of Nocash--who is also in the boosting business. The chances are Miss Moneybags will land one of England's most deeply indebted peers, and, if she does, Reggie will receive a handsome check for steering the family up against so attractive a proposition." "And you mean to tell us that a plain man like old John De Boodle, of Nevada, is putting out his hard-earned wealth in that way?" demanded Mr. Brief.