“I don’t suppose you have any kleptomaniacs in society in Washington.” said a New York dowager at the capital the other night at dinner, “but we have them in New York. The last great ball I went to with my daughter we wore very handsome seal skin wraps. Arriving at the dressing-room, the checks for them were handed out and my daughter put them between her teeth for a moment while she was adjusting a portion of her dress. She had occasion to speak to me and so dropped the checks on the floor, and we were about to hurry off to the ball room. I was determined, however, not to lose our wraps and so sent for a friend who was one of the reception committee, and we went into the cloak-room, where I identified the seal skin wraps and got fresh checks for them. At the close of the ball, when we went for them, the man in charge told me that Mrs. Blank, one of the ultra-fashionable women of the Four Hundred, had presented the lost checks and insisted upon my seal skin wraps being delivered to her. When she was informed of what had occurred in the matter of issuing new checks and the visit of the member of the reception committee to the cloakroom, she worked herself into a fine frenzy and walked off indignantly.

Upon another occasion, at one of the great weddings, quite a dramatic scene occurred. The bridal presents were all ostentatiously displayed to excite the envy and gratify the curiosity of the guests. A detective in plain clothes was in the room. He saw a well-known beautifully dressed woman go up to the table and begin admiring and commenting on the beauty of everything with great enthusiasm. She picked up a diamond bracelet and adroitly concealed it. The detective kept his eye on her, and as she was leaving the house to get into her carriage he stepped up to her and said: ‘Excuse me, madam, but haven’t you forgotten to leave your wedding present?’ She was equal to the emergency and pulled herself together with that consummate alacrity which amounts to genius in her sex, and said: ‘Oh, yes, so I have. Thank you very much. Very good of you, indeed.’ Then she calmly swept back to the table where the presents were displayed and depositied the bracelet with the box which contained it, the detective’s eye taking it all in with an amused and quizzical expression.”

The next time the signs of the zodiac are revised room should be made among them for the bicycle. As they stand they are out of date. The bicycle has come to be about the most conspicuous and omnipresent vernal emblem, and it is more conspicuous and omnipresent this year than ever before. Hordes of new adventurers–women adventurers in particular–have learned to ride it during the winter that is past, and are ready to seize upon the earliest days of warmth and sunshine to explore the parks and country roads. Since bicycling began an appalling amount of new knowledge has become necessary for the successful guidance of a family. One must know which bicycle is the best, what is the lowest sum it can be bought for, what sum any given second hand bicycle is really worth, whether last year’s machine will do for another season, and so on indefinitely. Briefly, the active participant in contemporary life must know bicycles, and if he is the father of a family his knowledge must be co-extensive with his parental responsibilities. The peculiarity about bicycles which is most impressive, and also most afflicting, is that every bicyclist yearns to start the season with a brand new machine of the very newest make. There is such a thing as being satisfied with last year’s horse, and even preferring him to an untried quadruped, but improvements in bicycles are devised so much more rapidly than improvement in horses that bicycles get out of date much sooner. And the, too, when you buy a new bicycle you can know pretty definitely what you are getting, and when you buy a new horse of course you can’t.