VI
CURTAIN
Nothing would satisfy Max but that Whitaker should dine with him. He
consented to drop him at the Ritz-Carlton, in order that he might dress, only on
the condition that Whitaker would meet him at seven, in the white room at the
Knickerbocker.
"Just mention my name to the head waiter," he said with magnificence; "or if I'm there first, you can't help seeing me. Everybody knows my table—the little one
in the southeast corner."
Whitaker promised, suppressing a smile; evidently the hat was not the only peculiarity of Mr. Hammerstein's that Max had boldly made his own.
Max surprised him by a shrewd divination of his thoughts. "I know what you're
thinking," he volunteered with an intensely serious expression shadowing his pudgy countenance; "but really, my dear fellow, it's
