Alice Duer Miller

“ My father was a gardener. This lady”—indicating Mrs. Grey, “knows that what I say is true. My father was her father's gardener.”
“Is this true?” asked the delegate.
“Yes,” answered Mrs. Grey, “and a very coarse, uneducated man too, as I remember him.”
“Thank you—oh, thank you,” said Mr. McFarlane warmly; and his wife, raising her tiara-ed head, added:
“Yes, and as a girl I used to take in plain—”
“Hush, Maria!” said her husband. “It is unnecessary. A wife always takes the rank of her husband in any society.” ”

“ Hewer, the Torby butler, stood in the hall, wearing the old-fashioned livery the Torbys affected. Hewer was not the kind of butler who opens the door; on the contrary, when the great double doors had been swung open by two footmen, Hewer was discovered standing back center, doing absolutely nothing, except, if a female guest should be so thoughtless as to direct her steps to the men's dressing-room, or a male to the women's, he set them right with a slight but autocratic gesture of the hand.
Hewer was rather a young man to be so very great. ”

“ McFarlane, declaring that at least the aristocracy knew how to die, burst into tears; and Trevillian Torby, bending over Miss Evington, declared in a passionate undertone that he would give his life for hers. But Miss Evington, with her eyes fixed on the delegate, drew back almost rudely from Trevillian's protecting droop and said quite loudly: “Nonsense, Trevillian! I don't feel myself in any danger.” ”

“ Both against justice and law and order—both discontented— Oh, yes, Bill, you are discontented, and Trevillian too. They don't get any fun out of life—not out of spending the money I had such a heap of fun making. And you'll find, young fellar,” he added to the delegate, “that there's only two kinds of folks worth fussing over in this world—them that enjoys life, and them that would jest as lief jump off the bridge to-morrow. ”

“ Grey, settling back comfortably in her corner. “I want to say this—not that I don't know that you are holding Evalina's hand behind my back, and I should know it, even if I were as blind as a bat, which I'm thankful to say I am not—I want to say that I think I believe in democracy, after all. The only really interesting and agreeable man there this evening, except yourself, my dear Richard, was that delightful old farmer. Evidently the thing that makes American society so dull is not the people they let in nowadays, as I had always imagined, but the people they keep out. ”

“ She was not like the Torbys, who seemed to go to their friends' houses chiefly for the sake of making an [amusing] story afterward of how dull and badly done their parties had been. Mrs. Grey did not go to the houses of those she considered her social inferiors, and as she considered almost everyone her social inferiors, and as most of them regarded her as a funny little old lady who didn't matter anyhow, she ate most of her meals quietly in her own house. ”

“ And Hewer, having announced the last guest, who was a good deal flustered from having had his high hat smashed over his nose—left the room to obey.
“They are bloodthirsty, simply bloodthirsty,” continued Mr. McFarlane. “One villainous-looking fellow shouted at my wife: “You don't look as if you needed another square meal for a year; give us a chance.'”
“Accurate observers, at least,” said Mrs. Grey in a twinkling aside to Miss Evington. “Come and sit down, my dear, and let us talk while these people regain their poise.”
“Do you think we are in any danger from the mob, Mrs. Grey?” ”

“ Grey.
“The trouble with this country,” continued Trevillian, “is the [growing] contempt for law and order. No one is brought up to respect the state—the Government. What would the poor do without the ruling class? Do you realize that the hospitals and institutions of this country would have to close? And what would happen then, I should like to know?”
“They would be run by the state, of course,” said Miss Evington, who knew her way about sociology. ”

“ The mob, probably through the culpable carelessness of the Administration—”
“Not a word against the Administration, sir,” cried the Admiral, “—the Administration under whom this country has just won one of the most signal tri—”
“I'm afraid, sir,” said Hewer most respectfully, “that the committee is not inclined to wait very much longer.”
IT was decided to admit the People's delegate at once. After all, however detestable his philosophy, he would be only one man against twenty-four guests, six footmen and Hewer. ”

“ The delegate in a few words, made less fluent by the fact that the old man had put on a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles and was now studying the delegate in detail, explained the principles of the Bolshevist movement, and the relation of these principles to the present company.
“Foolishness!” said the old man. “For the land's sake, what are clever fellars like you doing wasting your time fighting these folks?” And he waved his hand toward the dinner-table. “Aint you got sense enough to see that you're jest the same—jest the same? ”

“ Grey, but her household had not been congenial to him. In the first place there was an man elderly man in spectacles who managed everything, and who had attempted to manage Hewer. Then, Mrs. Grey was a widow with an only son, often away, and when he was away, Mrs. Grey dined by the library fire on [chops] and rice pudding; and she sometimes omitted the [chops] ; and though when Mr. Richard, was at home, he was very gay and good-tempered, on the whole Hewer felt the position to be depressing; and when the Torbys had humbly asked him to come back at a higher wage, he had consented. ”

“ Richard decisively. “You don't want to be a butler under the new order. I've just got a good job with a Western railroad. Come with me and run our dining-car service.”
The Great War has far-reaching effects. It was the war that made Hewer yield to this insane suggestion—the sense of dissatisfaction with himself because a weak heart had kept him from fighting, and the sense of power in Grey which a year and a half of being obeyed had thrown into his tone. ”

“ Barnsell, that this whole movement is extremely un-American. This country is a democracy—our forefathers died to make it so; and for you to attempt to introduce all these dangerous ideas of class antagonism is opposed to all the ideals of the founders of this nation. There are no class distinctions in America. ”

“ By what right, I say, do you feast, while better people are starving? But we are not cruel or unreasonable, and anyone here who can show that he or his immediate family belong to the proletariat and has worked with his hands, will be spared. ”

“ As a matter of fact, the first identified Torby, Ephraim by name, had strolled down to the great city from a Vermont farm just before the Civil War, and had made his fortune in questionable real-estate deals during the following years of unrest. ”

“ A number of returned sailors and soldiers, who felt perhaps that to fight for a poor cause was better than not fighting at all; had decided to defend the carpet. The complete harmony of everyone was proved by the fact that when driven away by the police-reserves, both parties were soon jointly engaged in upsetting all the ash-cans in a neighboring side-street.
Hewer sent the night-watchman to the housekeeper to get his wrist bandaged, got rid of the police by giving them some of Mr. ”