"The system, Mr. Ames, is wholly admirable, if you will pardon me for expressing a difference of opinion. We cannot do less than admire the austere genius before which mere plutocrats and men of affairs meekly bow. In making my own investments I would rather have the advice of Alphonse at the Hotel Pallida than that of the president of the strongest trust company on Manhattan Island. The varying size of the sums he receives for the dining-room furniture is the best possible indication of the condition of the market. When a citizen of Pittsburg will pay no more than one hundred dollars for the use of a table to eat from at the Pallida you may be sure that a panic impends. By the way, I proposed to Alphonse last winter the organization of a limited company of leading head-waiters to control the waiting industry of Fifth Avenue. It was my idea that some special forms of torture might be devised for calculating persons--usually readers of New York letters in provincial newspapers--who think a waiter entitled to only ten per cent of the bill, and this could best be managed by an arrangement between the five or six magnates who control the more gilded and imposing refectories. I suggested the placing of a special mark in the hats of the ten-per-cent fiends, so that wherever they dine the symbol of their indiscreet frugalities would be apparent to the initiated eye. It is another of my notions that the head-waiter and his humble slave should present a formal bill for their services, while the hotel or restaurant should merely be tipped. In this way the more important service would receive its due consideration. The sole office of the proprietor is to provide the head-waiter a place in which to follow his profession. Alphonse is impressed with my ideas, and has even offered to make me a director of the company." "I suppose that you won the regard of Alphonse, the magnificent, only by the most princely tips through many years of acquaintance, Miss Hollister." "On the other hand, Mr. Ames, I never gave him a cent in my life; but last Christmas, in recognition of his friendliness in warning me against an alligator-pear salad, at a moment when that vegetable was at the turn of the season, I knit him a pair of blue worsted bed-room slippers, which he received with the liveliest expressions of delight." Three suitors were announced at this moment, and I slipped away without excuses, while Miss Octavia and Cecilia adjourned to the library. The ghost, I had sworn, should not baffle me another night. XIII I DISCOVER TWO GHOSTS