“Well, I like that,” she interrupted.  “After all the thought I put into those dinners, after all the variety I so carefully secured!  My dear boy, you are frightfully ungrateful.”

“Oh, you know what I mean.  And you know quite as well as I do that it is perfectly true.  The dinners were a beastly bore, which proves that they were a loud success.  Your work was not done in vain.  But now I want something else.  We must push along the ball we’ve been talking of.  And the yachting cruise—­that can’t wait very much longer.”

“The ball first,” she decreed.  “I’ll see to the cards at once, and in a day or two I’ll have a list ready for your gracious approval.  And what have you done?”

“Pettingill has some great ideas for doing over Sherry’s.  Harrison is in communication with the manager of that Hungarian orchestra you spoke of, and he finds the men quite ready for a little jaunt across the water.  We have that military band—­I’ve forgotten the number of its regiment—­for the promenade music, and the new Paris sensation, the contralto, is coming over with her primo tenore for some special numbers.”

“You were certainly cut out for an executive, Monty,” said Mrs. Dan.  “But with the music and the decorations arranged, you’ve only begun.  The favors are the real thing, and if you say the word, we’ll surprise them a little.  Don’t worry about it, Monty.  It’s a go already.  We’ll pull it off together.”

“You are a thoroughbred, Mrs. Dan,” he exclaimed.  “You do help a fellow at a pinch.”

“That’s all right, Monty,” she answered; “give me until after Christmas and I’ll have the finest favors ever seen.  Other people may have their paper hats and pink ribbons, but you can show them how the thing ought to be done.”

Her reference to Christmas haunted Brewster, as he drove down Fifth Avenue, with the dread of a new disaster.  Never before had he looked upon presents as a calamity; but this year it was different.  Immediately he began to plan a bombardment of his friends with costly trinkets, when he grew suddenly doubtful of the opinion of his uncle’s executor upon this move.  But in response to a telegram, Swearengen Jones, with pleasing irascibility, informed him that “anyone with a drop of human kindness in his body would consider it his duty to give Christmas presents to those who deserved them.”  Monty’s way was now clear.  If his friends meant to handicap him with gifts, he knew a way to get even.  For two weeks his mornings were spent at Tiffany’s, and the afternoons brought joy to the heart of every dealer in antiquities in Fourth and Fifth Avenues.  He gave much thought to the matter in the effort to secure many small articles which elaborately concealed their value.  And he had taste.  The result of his endeavor was that many friends who would not have thought of remembering Monty with even a card were pleasantly surprised on Christmas Eve.