When Mr. V.V. and his gala raiment were gone, Kern skipped into his bedroom and hastily tackled the marked disorder there prevalent. She thought that an extra minute or so stolen for this purpose would not really be so very wrong. Care of the rooms was strictly included in the boarder's twenty dollars a month, but Kern was not thinking of it that way exactly. [Illustration: THERE'S _SOMETHING_ WRONG, SIR, MR. V.V.] "Mommer, what makes him have that kinder sorry look all the time, I wonder?" she said, when Mrs. Garland followed her in. "Sorry, what you talkin' about? A pleasanter spoke gempman I never see. Hand me them pants." "I'll fold'em, mommer.--I don't mean speakin', but the look he's got, just the same when he's laughin' and jokin' and all. It's the look he's got, don't you notice, someway?" "It's that foot o' his, I reckon. Pains him prob'ly. The mess he's left things.... He'd ought to have a fulldressuit of his own, 'stead o' borrowin' that fat O'Neill's." "Mommer, if he had one, somebody 'd ask it off him. Like he gave Mister his Sunday cutaway coat.... How'd he hurt his foot, mommer, jever hear him say?" "Berkler bone, _I_ hear." They worked in silence for a time. "I'm right tired to-night. Put 'em here in his clo'es-bag, mommer.... Don't seem it could be just his foot. Torm Hartman's leg's right off to his hip, and he's got a fat look to him. Mr. V.V.'s sorry like he wanted to do something, and something in him knewed all the time he couldn't ever." "Somep'n in him knewed--jever hear such foolishness! I'll take the broom to this floor. You go along to bed now. Didn't I hear you promise him?" "Mommer, I'm going. Only I druther of went to the party," said Kern. X A Beautiful New Year's Party, and who spoiled it, and how; how Something is done, after all, for she tells the Man plainly that he mustn't speak to her any more. By eleven o'clock the festivities approached their height: even the ultra-fashionable had arrived, even the ultra-conservative had not departed for bed. The affair was none of your wholesale routs. Old Mr. Beirne, who had long claimed the eve of the New Year for the hospitable repayment of his social dues, had lived to see the list of his friends shrink fast as Old Years ticked out. Nevertheless, the scene now was indubitably inspiriting. Lively groups decorated all the purview. White shirt-fronts gleamed: white shoulders did the same. The fragrance of flowers filled the air, filled likewise with the gay hum of voices. From behind a coppice of shrub and palm Professor Wissner's band of select artists continually seduced the feet. Toward the dining-room regions rose the sounds of refined conviviality. Servitors moved about with trays. Mrs. Clicquot's product fizzed, for the proper ceremonious induction of another year.