There was a large
private dining-room, elaborately decorated, with a string orchestra
concealed in a bower of plants. But there were cocktails even on the
side-board at the doorway; and by the time the guests had got to the
coffee, every one was hilariously drunk. After each toast they would
hurl their glasses over their shoulders. The purpose of a "bachelor
dinner," it appeared, was a farewell to the old days and the boon
companions; so there were sentimental and comic songs which had been
composed for the occasion, and were received with whirlwinds of
laughter.
By listening closely and reading between the lines, one might get
quite a history of the young host's adventurous career. There was a
house up on the West Side; and there was a yacht, with, orgies in
every part of the world. There was the summer night in Newport
harbour, when some one had hit upon the dazzling scheme of freezing
twenty-dollar gold pieces in tiny blocks of ice, to be dropped down
the girls' backs! And there was a banquet in a studio in New York,
when a huge pie had been brought on, from which a half-nude girl had
emerged, with a flock of canary birds about her! Then there was a
damsel who had been wont to dance upon the tops of supper tables,
clad in diaphanous costume; and who had got drunk after a
theatre-party, and set out to smash up a Broadway restaurant.
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