In great cities, amid the sheen of civilization is to be found just adjacent to smart quarters of the town the tulip in the variegated garden of landladies--the finished, polished stone gathered from the mine, the bird of plumage of the species; I mean, of course, the landlady _du beau monde_, the modish landlady, or perhaps I should say, the professional hostess, as it were. For it seems rather vulgar, a thing repellent to the finer sensibilities, to touch this distinguished figure of immaculate artificiality with the plebeian term of "landlady." The personages of this type are, so to say, of the peerage of their order. Such a Lady Drew it was whose guest I became for a time on Madison Avenue, New York. With silvered hair like a powdered coiffure; softly tinted with the delicate enamel of cosmetic; rich and stately of corsage--this expensive and highly sophisticated presence presided, in the subdued tone of the best society, over the nicely adjusted machinery of her smart establishment by the authority of a consciousness of highly cultivated efficiency and an aroma of unexceptionable standards. This consummate hostess type of landlady is, of course, one which the passionate collector will preserve in the cabinet of his mind with tremulous happiness in the sheer preciosity of it. I cannot but feel, however, myself, that this type fails of complete perfection as a work of art in this: that in every work of the first genius, it cannot be denied, there is always a strain of coarseness. And perhaps I should confess that my own taste in landladies, though I hope it is not undiscriminating, leans a bit toward the popular taste, the relish of the Rabelaisian. Stevenson has observed that most men of high destinies have even high-sounding names. And anyone who has reflected at all upon the phenomenon of landladies must have been struck by the singularly idiosyncratic character of their names. Indeed, an infallible way to pick out a competent landlady from an advertisement is by her name. Is it a happy name for a landlady? Go there! As her name is, so is her nature. I one time had a landlady on Broome Street, New York, whom the gods named Mrs. Brew. I one time had a landlady (in Milligan Place, Manhattan) of the name of Mrs. Boggs. One time I had a landlady just off the East India Dock Road, London, whose name was Wigger. I shall always cherish the memory of the landlady I had down in Surrey, Mrs. Cheeseman. One and all, these ladies, as landladies, were without stain.