"You just tell me--I'd like to know--why a fellow like that makes such a damned fool of himself! Salary of fifty thousand dollars a year! Big house; high-class wife and family; yacht--everything anybody wants. Not a drinking man either. It defeats me!" he said. None of the group seemed able to suggest an answer. I had just tossed off my "Hannah Elias." "I think I know," I hazarded meditatively. They turned with one accord and stared at me. "There was nothing else for him to do," I continued, "except to blow his brains out." The raconteur grunted. "I don't just know the meaning of that!" he remarked. "I thought he was a friend of yours!" "Oh, I like him well enough," I answered, getting up. "Thanks for the drink. I've got to be getting home. My wife is giving a little luncheon to thirty valuable members of society." I was delayed on Fifth Avenue and when the butler opened the front door the luncheon party was already seated at the table. A confused din emanated from behind the portières of the dining room, punctuated by shouts of female laughter. The idea of going in and overloading my stomach for an hour, while strenuously attempting to produce light conversation, sickened me. I shook my head. "Just tell your mistress that I've been suddenly called away on business," I directed the butler and climbed back into my motor. "Up the river!" I said to my chauffeur. We spun up the Riverside Drive, past rows of rococo apartment houses, along the Lafayette Boulevard and through Yonkers. It was a glorious autumn day. The Palisades shone red and yellow with turning foliage. There was a fresh breeze down the river and a thousand whitecaps gleamed in the sunlight. Overhead great white clouds moved majestically athwart the blue. But I took no pleasure in it all. I was suffering from an acute mental and physical depression. Like Hamlet I had lost all my mirth--whatever I ever had--and the clouds seemed but a "pestilent congregation of vapors." I sat in a sort of trance as I was whirled farther and farther away from the city. At last I noticed that my silver motor clock was pointing to half-past two, and I realized that neither the chauffeur nor myself had had anything to eat since breakfast. We were entering a tiny village. Just beyond the main square a sign swinging above the sidewalk invited wayfarers to a "quick lunch." I pressed the button and we pulled to the gravel walk. "Lunch!" I said, and opened the wire-netted door. Inside there were half a dozen oilcloth-covered tables and a red-cheeked young woman was sewing in a corner. "What have you got?" I asked, inspecting the layout. "Tea, coffee, milk--eggs any style you want," she answered cheerily. Then she laughed in a good-natured way. "There's a real hotel at Poughkeepsie--five miles along," she added. "I don't want a real hotel," I replied. "What are you laughing at?" Then I realized that I must look rather civilized for a motorist. "You don't look as you'd care for eggs," she said.