There was a jolly small party at one of the tables that drew many eyes.  Miss Carrington, petite, marvellous, bubbling, electric, fame-drunken, shall be named first.  Herr Goldstein follows, sonorous, curly-haired, heavy, a trifle anxious, as some bear that had caught, somehow, a butterfly in his claws.  Next, a man condemned to a newspaper, sad, courted, armed, analyzing for press agent’s dross every sentence that was poured over him, eating his a la Newburg in the silence of greatness.  To conclude, a youth with parted hair, a name that is ochre to red journals and gold on the back of a supper check.  These sat at a table while the musicians played, while waiters moved in the mazy performance of their duties with their backs toward all who desired their service, and all was bizarre and merry because it was nine feet below the level of the sidewalk.

At 11.45 a being entered the rathskeller.  The first violin perceptibly flatted a C that should have been natural; the clarionet blew a bubble instead of a grace note; Miss Carrington giggled and the youth with parted hair swallowed an olive seed.

Exquisitely and irreproachably rural was the new entry.  A lank, disconcerted, hesitating young man it was, flaxen-haired, gaping of mouth, awkward, stricken to misery by the lights and company.  His clothing was butternut, with bright blue tie, showing four inches of bony wrist and white-socked ankle.  He upset a chair, sat in another one, curled a foot around a table leg and cringed at the approach of a waiter.

“You may fetch me a glass of lager beer,” he said, in response to the discreet questioning of the servitor.

The eyes of the rathskeller were upon him.  He was as fresh as a collard and as ingenuous as a hay rake.  He let his eye rove about the place as one who regards, big-eyed, hogs in the potato patch.  His gaze rested at length upon Miss Carrington.  He rose and went to her table with a lateral, shining smile and a blush of pleased trepidation.

“How’re ye, Miss Posie?” he said in accents not to be doubted.  “Don’t ye remember me—­Bill Summers—­the Summerses that lived back of the blacksmith shop?  I reckon I’ve growed up some since ye left Cranberry Corners.

“’Liza Perry ’lowed I might see ye in the city while I was here.  You know ’Liza married Benny Stanfield, and she says—­”

“Ah, say!” interrupted Miss Carrington, brightly, “Lize Perry is never married—­what!  Oh, the freckles of her!”

“Married in June,” grinned the gossip, “and livin’ in the old Tatum Place.  Ham Riley perfessed religion; old Mrs. Blithers sold her place to Cap’n Spooner; the youngest Waters girl run away with a music teacher; the court-house burned up last March; your uncle Wiley was elected constable; Matilda Hoskins died from runnin’ a needle in her hand, and Tom Beedle is courtin’ Sallie Lathrop—­they say he don’t miss a night but what he’s settin’ on their porch.”