room, first broke into the paradise of the society column by way of this resort.  For a woman with money and the press-agent type of mind it is not a difficult thing to accomplish.  One must think of sensational things to do—­invent a new fad in dress, or send one’s dog riding each day in a special wheel chair, or bring down one’s own private dancing instructor or golf instructor at $5,000 for the season.  Above all, one must be nice to the correspondents of newspapers.  Never must one forget to do that.  Never must one imagine oneself so securely placed in society columns that one may forget the reporters who gave one that place.

One lady who, for several seasons, figured extensively in the news from Palm Beach, fell into this error.  She thought herself safe, and altered her manner toward newspaper folk.  But, alas! thereupon they altered their manner toward her.  The press clippings sent by the bureau to which she subscribed became fewer and fewer.  Her sensational feats went unnoticed.  At last came a ball—­one of the three big balls of the season; a New York paper printed a list of names of persons who went to the ball; a column of names in very small type.  Lying in bed a few mornings later she read through the names and came to the end without finding her own.  Thinking that she must have skipped it, she read the names over again with great care.  Then she sent for her husband, and he read them.  When it was clear to them both that her name was actually not there, it is said she went into hysterics.  At all events, her husband came down in a rage and complained to the hotel management.  But what could the management do?  What can they do?  The woman is doomed.  The Palm Beach correspondents who “made” her have been snubbed by her and have unanimously declared “thumbs down.”  It is theirs to give, but let no climber be unmindful of the fact that it is also theirs to take away!

As Mrs. H.S.  Jumpkinson-Jones looks over the top of her harem veil she may see a great glistening steam yacht, with rakish masts and funnel, lying off the pier-head; and down on the sand she may see the young master and mistress of that yacht:  a modest, attractive pair, possessors of one of the world’s great fortunes, yet not nearly so elaborately dressed, nor so insistent upon their “position,” as the Jumpkinson-Joneses.  By raising the brim of her hat a trifle Mrs. H.S.  Jumpkinson-Jones may see, sweeping in glorious circles above the yacht, the hydroplane which, when it left the edge of the beach a few minutes since, blew back with its propeller a stinging storm of sand, and caused skirts to snap like flags in a hundred-mile-an-hour hurricane; and in that hydroplane she knows there is another multimillionaire.

Near by, sitting disconsolately upon the sand, are the one-horse Middle-Western millionaire with his wife and daughter—­the three who were ousted from her seats by the beach-chair man.  Mrs. H.S.  Jumpkinson-Jones, like every one who has spent a season, let alone half a dozen seasons, at Palm Beach, immediately recognizes the type.