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THERE was music from my neighbor's house through the summer nights.In his blue gardens men and girlscame and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars.At high tide in the

afternoon I watched his guests diving from the tower of his raft.or taking the sun on the hot sand of his beachwhile his two motor-boats slit the waters of the Sound.drawing aquaplanes over cataracts of foam.Onweek-ends his Rolls-Royce became an omnibus.bearing parties to and from the city between nine in themorning and long past midnight.while his station wagon scampered like a brisk yellow bug to meet all trains.

And on Mondays eight servants.including an extra gardener.toiled all day with mops and scrubbing-brushesand hammers and garden-shears,repairing the ravages of the night before.

Every Friday five crates of oranges and lemons arrived from a fruiterer in New Yorkevery Monday thesesame oranges and lemons left his back door in a pyramid of pulpless halves.There was a machine in thekitchen which could extract the juice of two hundred oranges in half an hour if a little button was pressed twohundred times by a butler's thumb.

At least once a fortnight a corps of caterers came down with several hundred feet of canvas and enoughcolored lights to make a Christmas tree of Gatsby's enormous garden.On buffet tables,garnished withglistening hors-d'oeuvre.spiced baked hams crowded against salads of harlequin designs and pastry pigs andturkeys bewitched to a dark gold.In the main hall a bar with a real brass rail was set up,and stocked withgins and liquors and with cordials so long forgotten that most of his female guests were too young to knowone from another.

By seven o'clock the orchestra has arrived,no thin five-piece affair.but a whole pitful of oboes and

trombones and saxophones and viols and comets and piccolos,and low and high drums.The last swimmershave come in from the beach now and are dressing up-stairs:the cars from New York are parked five deep inthe drive,and already the halls and salons and verandas are gaudy with primary colors.and hair shorn instrange new ways,and shawls beyond the dreams of Castile

The bar is in full swing.and floating rounds of cocktails permeate the garden outside,until the air is alivewith chatter and laughter.and casual innuendo and introductions forgotten on the spot.and enthusiasticmeetings between women who never knew each other's names.

The lights grow brighter as the earth lurches away from the sun.and now the orchestra is playing yellowcocktail music.and the opera of voices pitches a key higher.Laughter is easier minute by minute.spilled withprodigality.tipped out at a cheerful word.The groups change more swiftly.swell with new arrivals.dissolveand form in the same breath:already there are wanderers.confident girls who weave here and there amongthe stouter and more stable,become for a sharp.joyous moment the centre of a group,and then,excited withtriumph.glide on through the sea-change of faces and voices and color under the constantly changing light.

Suddenly one of the gypsies.in trembling opal,seizes a cocktail out of the air,dumps it down for courageand,moving her hands like Frisco.dances out alone on the canvas platform.A momentary hush:the orchestraleader varies his rhythm obligingly for her.and there is a burst of chatter as the erroneous news goes aroundthat she is Gilda Gray's understudy from the"Follies."The party has begun.

I believe that on the first night I went to Gatsby's house I was one of the few guests who had actually beeninvited.People were not invitedthey went there.They got into automobiles which bore them out to Long

Island,and somehow they ended up at Gatsby's door.Once there they were introduced by somebody whoknew Gatsby,and after that they conducted themselves according to the rules of behavior associated withamusement parks.Sometimes they came and went without having met Gatsby at all,came for the party with a