"What we were speaking of, Sam.... Just to show you I'm not so opinionated--so eccentric--as you seem to think. I read a great little thing the other day.... In a magazine article, it was, describing one of those so-called public balls--in Chicago, this one was. You know the sort of thing--an orgy: rounders and roués, young cheap sports, old rakes, all the demi-monde, rivers of alcohol.... Drunken women kicking men's hats off and lying where they fell.... Regular bacchanalia. Well, about one o'clock two men in evening clothes came into the gallery and stood looking down into that--maelstrom of infamous faces.... Then one of them said: '_John the Baptist would have 'em all grovelling in three minutes_' ..." He had told his story with a certain youthful expectancy, the air of one who confides, counting upon a delicate understanding. But Sam O'Neill, though perfectly willing to be delicate, could only say, after an anti-climacteric pause: "Is that right? Well, that bunch needed to grovel all right"--which was a little vague, say what you would of it, chilling somewhat.... "Well, what's your coryphées' ball but life?" muttered Vivian, knocking the ashes from the dead pipe he had been holding.... And then, turning away with the fire gone out of him, he added: "All I say about these people is they'd be so much happier with their shells hammered off. What's getting rich but building a wall between yourself and the great common?... Seems to me God meant us all to be citizens of the world ..." "That's right," said Sam, reassuringly. And then, as the two men walked toward the door: "Oh, I don't say that letter there'll do any _harm_, V.V. Maybe a little stirring 'em up's just as well ..." At the door, O'Neill recollected, and spoke again: "Oh, say, V.V.! Saw your gay young friend Dalhousie just now. Had a pretty nice little load of bananas too ..." V.V. halted dead, his look changing abruptly. Trouble gathered on his brow. "Where?" "Driving down Centre Street in a hack, looking sober as a judge, but--" "What sort of hack?" demanded Vivian, as if a good deal might depend on that. "Reg'lar sea-going," answered the Commissioner, confirming the worst. "Kind with the fold-back top, like you see principally at nigger funerals and aldermen's parades...." But it was evidently no merry matter to V.V. "Then he's off," said he, slowly, and glanced at his watch.... "He seemed all right when I saw him last night. Only you never can tell, with him.... I wonder if I could catch him...." The Commissioner thought not. "He was headed straight for Centre Street Station, and that was a half-hour ago. Had a bag out front in the sea-going, too. Oh, thunder, he's all right. Little trip'll do him good...." Left alone in his office, V. Vivian stood still, staring intently into space.