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Chapters (24)
  1. Feature
  2. CHAPTER I
  3. CHAPTER II
  4. CHAPTER III
  5. CHAPTER IV
  6. CHAPTER V
  7. CHAPTER VI
  8. CHAPTER VII
  9. CHAPTER VIII
  10. CHAPTER IX
  11. CHAPTER X
  12. CHAPTER XI
  13. CHAPTER XII
  14. CHAPTER XIII
  15. CHAPTER XIV
  16. CHAPTER XV
  17. CHAPTER XVI
  18. CHAPTER XVII
  19. CHAPTER XVIII
  20. CHAPTER XIX
  21. CHAPTER XX
  22. CHAPTER XXI
  23. You are reading a Deluxe Edition:
  24. Copyright

There was no end to the miracles of this establishment, as Montague found in the course of time. There was no chance that the antique bronze clock on the mantel might go wrong, for it was electrically controlled from the office. You did not open the window and let in the dust, for the room was automatically ventilated, and you turned a switch marked "hot" and "cold." The office would furnish you a guide who would show you the establishment; and you might see your bread being kneaded by electricity, upon an opal glass table, and your eggs being tested by electric light; you might peer into huge refrigerators, ventilated by electric fans, and in which each tiny lamb chop reposed in a separate holder. Upon your own floor was a pantry, provided with hot and cold storage-rooms and an air-tight dumb-waiter; you might have your own private linen and crockery and plate, and your own family butler, if you wished. Your children, however, would not be permitted in the building, even though you were dying - this was a small concession which you made to a host who had invested a million dollars and a half in furniture alone.

A few minutes later the telephone bell rang, and Oliver answered it and said, "Send him up."

"Here's the tailor," ho remarked, as he hung up the receiver.

"Whose tailor?" asked his brother.

"Yours," said he.

"Do I have to have some new clothes?" Montague asked.

"You haven't any clothes at present," was the reply.

Montague was standing in front of the "costumer," as the elaborate mirror was termed. He looked himself over, and then he looked at his brother. Oliver's clothing was a little like the Circassian walnut; at first you thought that it was simple, and even a trifle careless - it was only by degrees you realized that it was original and distinguished, and very expensive.

"Won't your New York friends make allowance for the fact that I am fresh from the country?" asked Montague, quizzically.

"They might," was the reply. "I know a hundred who would lend me money, if I asked them. But I don't ask them."

"Then how soon shall I be able to appear?" asked Montague, with visions of himself locked up in the room for a week or two.

"You are to have three suits to-morrow morning," said Oliver. "Genet has promised."

"Suits made to order?" gasped the other, in perplexity.

"He never heard of any other sort of suits," said Oliver, with grave rebuke in his voice.