374          THE  TRAIL OF  '98
in my tracks. I realise that somehow I must make her pity me, must awake in her that guardian angel which exists in every woman. Only in that way can I break down the barrier of her pride and arouse the love latent in her heart.
There are half a dozen girls in the box, a bevy of beauties, and I buy a case of wine for each, over a thousand dollars' worth. Screaming with laughter they toss it in bottles down to their friends in the audience. It is a scene of riotous excitement. The audience roars, the girls shriek, the orchestra tries to make itself heard. Madder and madder grows the merriment. The fierce fever of it scorches in my veins. I am mad to spend, to throw away money, to outdo all others in bitter, reckless prodigality. I fling twenty-dollar gold pieces to the singers. I open bottle after bottle of wine. The girls are spraying the crowd with it, the floor of the box swims with it. I drop my pencil signing a tab, and when I look down it is floating in a pool of champagne.
Then comes the last. The dance has begun. Men in fur caps, mackinaw coats and mucklucks are waltzing with women clad in Paris gowns and spark-ling with jewels. The floor is thronged. I have a large, hundred-ounce poke of dust, and I unloose the thong. Suddenly with a mad shout I scatter its contents round the hall. Like a shower of golden rain it falls on men and women alike. See how they grovel for it, the brutes, the vampires! How they fight and grab and sprawl over it! How they shriek and howl and curse!    It is like an arena of wild