At a time when the crime of kidnapping was sweeping the country like a plague, my employer Madame Storey and I attended the first night of a Paul Vallorbe play at the Bijou Theatre. Lately the kidnappers had been soaring to unprecedented heights of boldness. Nearly every week the son or the daughter of some prominent family was discovered to be missing, and enormous sums of money had been collected in ransoms. At the moment there seemed to be no effective way of dealing with the outrages.

The Paul Vallorbe first night was the first night of the season and the whole town was there. Mme. Storey, who knows everybody and is intimate with none, takes me with her on such occasions as a kind of buffer. When she has a companion it is more difficult for people to fasten themselves on her.