“Everybody thinks there’s some trickery in that suit,” she answered.

“Oh,” said Montague, “I see.  Well, they will find out.  If it will help you any to know it, I’ve been having no end of scenes with my brother.”

“I’ll believe you,” said Mrs. Billy, genially.  “But it seems strange that a man could have been so blind to a situation!  I feel quite ashamed because I didn’t help you myself!”

The carriage had stopped at Mrs. Billy’s home, and she asked him to dinner.  “There’ll be nobody but my brother,” she said,—­“we’re resting this evening.  And I can make up to you for my negligence!”

Montague had no engagement, and so he went in, and saw Mrs. Billy’s mansion, which was decorated in imitation of a Doge’s palace, and met Mr.  “Davy” Alden, a mild-mannered little gentleman who obeyed orders promptly.  They had a comfortable dinner of half-a-dozen courses, and then retired to the drawing-room, where Mrs. Billy sank into a huge easy chair, with a decanter of whisky and some cracked ice in readiness beside it.  Then from a tray she selected a thick black cigar, and placidly bit off the end and lighted it, and then settled back at her ease, and proceeded to tell Montague about New York, and about the great families who ruled it, and where and how they had got their money, and who were their allies and who their enemies, and what particular skeletons were hidden in each of their closets.

It was worth coming a long way to listen to Mrs. Billy tete-a-tete; her thoughts were vigorous, and her imagery was picturesque.  She spoke of old Dan Waterman, and described him as a wild boar rooting chestnuts.  He was all right, she said, if you didn’t come under his tree.  And Montague asked, “Which is his tree?” and she answered, “Any one he happens to be under at the time.”

And then she came to the Waitings.  Mrs. Billy had been in on the inside of that family, and there was nothing she didn’t know about it; and she brought the members up, one by one, and dissected them, and exhibited them for Montague’s benefit.  They were typical bourgeois people, she said.  They were burghers.  They had never shown the least capacity for refinement—­they ate and drank, and jostled other people out of the way.  The old ones had been boors, and the new ones were cads.

And Mrs. Billy sat and puffed at her cigar.  “Do you know the history of the family?” she asked.  “The founder was a rough old ferryman.  He fought his rivals so well that in the end he owned all the boats; and then some one discovered the idea of buying legislatures and building railroads, and he went into that.  It was a time when they simply grabbed things—­if you ever look into it, you’ll find they’re making fortunes to-day out of privileges that the old man simply sat down on and held.  There’s a bridge at Albany, for instance, to which they haven’t the slightest right; my brother knows about it—­they’ve given themselves a contract with their railroad by