23

"This is much too polite for me."We got up,and she explained that we were going to find the host:I hadnever met him,she said,and it was making me uneasy.The undergraduate nodded in a cynical,melancholyway.

The bar,where we glanced first,was crowded,but Gatsby was not there.She couldn't find him from the topof the steps,and he wasn't on the veranda.On a chance we tried an important-looking door,and walked intoa high Gothic library.panelled with carved English oak.and probably transported complete from some ruinoverscas.

A stout,middle-aged man.with enormous owl-eyed spectacles,was sitting somewhat drunk on the edge of agreat table,staring with unsteady concentration at the shelves of books.As we entered he wheeled excitedlyaround and examined Jordan from head to foot.

"What do you think?"he demanded impetuously.

"About what?"He waved his hand toward the book-shelves.

"About that.As a matter of fact you needn't bother to ascertain.I ascertained.They're real."

"The books?"He nodded.

"Absolutely realhave pages and everything.I thought they'd be a nice durable cardboard.Matter of fact,they're absolutely real.Pages andHere!Lemme show you."Taking our scepticism for granted,he rushed tothe bookcases and returned with Volume One of the "Stoddard Lectures."

"See!"he cried triumphantly.

"It's a bona-fide piece of printed matter.It fooled me.This fella's a regular Belasco.It's a triumph.Whatthoroughness!What realism!Knew when to stop.toodidn't cut the pages.But what do you want?What doyou expect?"He snatched the book from me and replaced it hastily on its shelf.muttering that if one brickwas removed the whole library was liable to collapse.

"Who brought you?"he demanded.

"Or did you just come?I was brought.Most people were brought."Jordan looked at him alertly.cheerfully,without answering.

"I was brought by a woman named Roosevelt,"he continued.

"Mrs.Claud Roosevelt.Do you know her?I met her somewhere last night.I've been drunk for about a weeknow,and I thought it might sober me up to sit in a library."

"Has it?""A little bit,I think.I can't tell yet.I've only been here an hour.Did I tell you about the books?

They're real.They're-."

"You told us."We shook hands with him gravely and went back outdoors.

There was dancing now on the canvas in the garden;old men pushing young girls backward in eternalgraceless circles,superior couples holding each other tortuously.fashionably.and keeping in the cornersand a great number of single girls dancing individualistically or relieving the orchestra for a moment of theburden of the banjo or the traps.