He glanced about the room. "It does look like I was boardin' a pet hurricane, don't it," he admitted. "Sometimes I've been on the point o' askin' Mrs. Hahn (who attended to the three-room flat) to clean up a bit--but, oh say! I can't boss a woman!" Early in their friendship the Mayor had discovered that David had some acquaintance with the social customs of Fifth Avenue, and he had gradually adopted David as his social and sartorial mentor--though in the item of vests he grumbled against David's taste as altogether too conservative. So David was not now surprised when the Mayor said, "I sent for you to look me over," stepped into the best light, pulled down his vest and coat, and demanded complacently: "Well, friend, do I look fit to be two-steppin' with the ladies?" David's gaze travelled upward from the broad, but not broad enough, patent-leather shoes, past his large, white-gloved hands, to the white vest girdled with a heavy gold chain, across the broad and glistening area of his evening shirt, and upward to the culminating glory of his silk hat. "You certainly do!" said David. "I thought you'd think so," said the Mayor, nodding. "When I get into my dress suit I ain't such a slouch, am I. But since you made me quit wearin' them handy white bows that hooks in the back o' the neck, my ties always look like I'd tied 'em with my feet. Here, fix this blamed thing on me right." When David had complied, the Mayor lowered himself into a chair, taking care to pull up his trousers and to see that the bending did not crumple his shirt bosom. "It's the first fall affair--at the Liberty Assembly Hall--very small crowd--very select," he announced to David in a confidential voice that could have been heard in the street. "If only the dear ladies--oh Lord!--leave me alone!" He sighed, and shook his head. "I may look like a happy man, friend, but I ain't. I'm gettin' near my finish. Yes, sir! The bunch after me is narrowin' down to a few--the rest has sorter dropped out o' the runnin'. And them few is closin' in on me--closin' in on me. They're in earnest, every one of 'em. Oh, you can't count the chances I have to set alone with 'em in their parlours, walk home alone with 'em at night, and all them sort o' tricks. And me"--he groaned, and despair made a vain effort to wrinkle his smooth face--"me, I like it. That's the hell of it! "Yes, one's goin' to get me sure. I wish I knew which one'd win out. I'd be almost willin' to put my money on Carrie Becker. I guess she's as good as any of 'em. She's just had a row with Mrs. Schweitzer. You know Mrs. Schweitzer sets in one corner o' Schweitzer's café every afternoon, and holds a kind o' reception with the people that drop in. Carrie Becker wants to marry me and do the same thing in my café, which is ten times as good as Schweitzer's. She wants to snow Mrs. Schweitzer under. Oh, I'm onto her! That makes two reasons she has for marryin' me. Yes--if I was bettin', I'd bet on Carrie Becker."