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 "Well, they swallow them, I've noticed," retorted Brewster, "as though they were chocolates."

Pettingill interrupted grandiloquently. "My friends and gentlemen!"

"Which is which?" asked Van Winkle, casually.

But the artist was in the saddle. "Permit me to present to you the boy Crœsus—the only one extant. His marbles are plunks and his kites are made of fifty-dollar notes. He feeds upon coupons à la Newburgh, and his champagne is liquid golden eagles. Look at him, gentlemen, while you can, and watch him while he spends thirteen thousand dollars for flowers!"

"With a Viennese orchestra for twenty-nine thousand!" added Bragdon. "And yet they maintain that silence is golden."

"And three singers to divide twelve thousand among themselves! That's absolutely criminal," cried Van Winkle. "Over in Germany they'd sing a month for half that amount."

"Six hundred guests to feed—total cost of not less than forty thousand dollars," groaned "Nopper," dolefully.

"And there aren't six hundred in town,"