On some occasions Uncle Heck breaks through the bars and dashes into the scene of refinement with merry quip and jest to the confusion of his relatives and the ill-concealed amusement of their guests. This was one of those occasions. Early in the evening Jack took Uncle Heck to his room, sat him in front of a quart of vintage, and left the old geezer there to slosh around in the surf until sleep claimed him for its own. But after the wine was gone Uncle Heck put on the gloves with Morpheus, got the decision, marched down stairs and into the drawing room, where he immediately insisted upon being the life of the party. Uncle Heck moved and seconded that he sing the swan song from _Lohengrin_, but his idea of a swan was so much like a turkey gobbler that loving friends slipped him the moccasins and elbowed him out of the room. Then he went out in the butler's pantry, hoping to do an Omar Khayyam with the grape, but, not finding any, he began to recite, "Down in the Lehigh Valley me and my people grew; I was a blacksmith, Cap'n; yes, and a good one, too! Let me sit down a minute, a stone's got into my shoe----" But it wasn't a stone, and it didn't get into his shoe. It was a potato salad and it got into his face when the Irish cook threw it at him for interfering with her work. "I'm discouraged," murmured Uncle Heck, and presently he was sleeping with magnificent noises on the sofa in the library. There were present at the battle in the drawing room Uncle Peter Grant and Aunt Martha; Hep Hardy and his diamond shirt studs; Bunch Jefferson and his wife, Alice; Bud Hawley and his second wife; Phil Merton and his third wife; Dave Mason and his stationary wife; Stub Wilson and his wife, Jennie, who is Peaches' sister, and a few others who asked to have their names omitted. The mad revels were inaugurated by the Pippin Brothers, who attempted to drag some grouchy music out of guitars that didn't want to give up. The Pippin Brothers part their hair in the middle and always do the march from "The Babes in Toyland" on their mandolins as an encore. If Victor Herbert ever catches them there'll be a couple of shine chord-chokers away to the bad. When the Pippin Brothers took a bow and backed off into a vase of flowers we were all invited to listen to a soprano solo by Miss Imogene Glassface. When Imogene sings she makes faces at herself. When she needs a high note she goes after it like a hen after a lady-bug. Imogene sang "Sleep, Sweetly Sleep!" and then kept us awake with her voice. Then we had Rufus Kellar Smith, the parlor prestidigitator. Rufus was a bad boy. He cooked an omelette in a silk hat and when he handed the hat back to Hep Hardy two poached eggs fell out and cuddled up in Hep's hair. Rufus apologized and said he'd do the trick over again if some one would lend him a hat, but nothing doing. We all preferred our eggs boiled. Then we had Claribel Montrose in select recitations. She was all the money.