Even without this evidence that he does not grasp at all, the seriousness of the beach-chair situation, the fact that the uncouth stranger has referred to Mrs. H.S.  Jumpkinson-Jones merely as “Mrs. Jones,” brands him among the Palm Beach “regulars” who have overheard him, as a barbarian of the barbarians.  People in neighboring chairs at once turn their backs upon him and glance at each other knowingly with raised eyebrows.  At this juncture, let us hope, the daughter of the intruder manages to pry him loose; let us hope also that she takes him aside and tells him what everybody ought to know:  namely, that Mrs. H.S.  Jumpkinson-Jones has been a society leader ever since the “Journal” published the full-page Sunday story about her having gold fillings put in her Boston terrier’s teeth.  That was away back in 1913, just before she was allowed to get her divorce from Royal Tewksbury Johnson III of Paris, Newport, and New York.  The day after the divorce she married her present husband, and up to last year, when the respective wives of a munitions millionaire and a moving-picture millionaire began to cut in on her, no one thought of denying her claim to be the most wasteful woman in Palm Beach.

True, she may not come down to the beach to-day, but in that case it is obviously proper that her chairs—­including those of her dog and her husband—­remain magnificently vacant throughout the bathing hour.

The lady is, however, likely to appear.  She will be wearing one of the seventy hats which, we have learned by the papers, she brought with her, and a pint or so of her lesser pearls.  Her dog—­which is sometimes served beside her at table at the Beach Club, and whose diet is the same as her own, even to strawberries and cream followed by a demi tasse—­will be in attendance; and her husband, whose diet is even richer, may also appear if he has recovered from his matutinal headache.  Here she will sit through the hour, gossiping with her friends, watching the antics of several beautiful, dubious women, camp followers of the rich, who add undoubted interest to the place; calling languidly to her dog:  “Viens, Tou-tou!  Viens vite!” above all waiting patiently, with crossed knees, for news-service photographers to come and take her picture—­a picture which, when we see it presently in “Vogue,” “Vanity Fair,” or a Sunday newspaper, will present indisputable proof that Mrs. H.S.  Jumpkinson-Jones and the ladies sitting near her (also with legs crossed) refrained from wearing bathing suits neither through excessive modesty nor for fear of revealing deformity of limb.

Many a Mrs. H.S.  Jumpkinson-Jones has beaten her way to glory by the Palm Beach route.  Many of the names which sound vaguely familiar when you read them in connection with the story of a jewel robbery, in lists of “those present,” or in an insinuating paragraph in the tattered copy of “Town Topics” which you pick up, in lieu of reading matter, from the table in your dentist’s waiting