The turn of a street corner, the going this way instead of that, the casual introduction to a certain woman, and a thousand other things often prove the turning point in life, sometimes for good and sometimes for bad. To every man opportunity comes once at least. The successful ones are those who have recognized their chance and taken prompt advantage of it. But anyone can preach a sermon, and money doesn’t always follow in the footsteps of education.

That will do for a starter to this story of a woman, a dinner and two men. You will notice that the woman comes first, the dinner next, and the men last, which is as it should be. Women should always be in the lead, which fact will be more fully recognized when their ability and genius become more generally understood and appreciated.

The dinner in this story changed the current of three lives so abruptly that it almost became a tragedy, and if you like you can take this as a moral, and beware of dinners, unless, of course, you are looking for a change, in which event you can take this as a tip and dine with the crowd early and often and see what happens.

The son of a wealthy Eastern brewer, born with a gold spoon in his mouth, and taught to believe that the world was made for his especial benefit, after blazing his way along the White Light thoroughfare for a few years, and making a name for himself as a spender of rare ability, took it suddenly into his head to reform. A good many hard nights had brought out a crop of fine wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, and high living had added several inches to his waist line. But he was still good looking and ruddy cheeked, and there were a number of charming ladies living on certain side streets who knew him well enough to call him by his first name, and who were always glad to see him whether he did the sucker trick of opening bad wine at $5 a throw or not. In his mind the first step toward reformation meant marriage with some nice respectable young woman who had been correctly brought up, and whose family tree would bear investigation, and as his income was somewhere in the neighborhood of $30,000 it wasn’t hard to find what he wanted, for ninety-nine women out of a hundred would cheerfully fasten themselves to a monstrosity if there was a bank book in the inside pocket.

He picked out the girl he proposed to turn from a Miss into a Mrs., paid attention to her for thirty days without a break, then he proposed and was accepted, and the date of the marriage was set for two months later. It was a case of thirty and sixty days, with no discounts off.

It is usual in a case of this kind to give a farewell dinner to the bunch, to have one last good drunk and then a laborious climb aboard the water wagon until after the honeymoon. So he hunted up one of his best friends and told him the glad news.

“Never again for me,” he said, “and all the Dotties and Lotties and Totties can strike my name off their lists, for I’m going to marry, old man, and settle down to business. But I’m going to have one big blaze before I go, and I want you to get it up, for you can lay out a dinner better than anyone I know, and besides, I’m going to have you for my best man when I get hitched. Now go as far as you like and damn the expense. Have a stag with all the good fellows there that we know, and we’ll set off a few fireworks that will give them something to talk about.”

The banquet room of a big hotel was engaged, and the French chef got an order to lay out a spread that would make an old Roman feast look like a Bowery beef stew. Then the enterprising best man, who was something of a high roller himself, set his wits to work to devise a novelty that would top anything in the banquet line ever seen in New York after the lights were turned on. About fifty invitations went out, and in response to them on one eventful Saturday night, half a hundred dyed-in-the-wool sports, of the kind who buy diamond rings for little ladies who dance well, settled themselves in very comfortable chairs, and prepared to have the time of their lives and wish good luck to the man who was going to become respectable. The dinner was only a side issue, for it was to be nothing more nor less than one great drunk, and that was understood from the start. So the wine flowed as freely as water in the spring when the melting snows flood the brooks and swell the rivers, and for every five men there was one waiter to see that no one went thirsty. From ten until twelve the black-jacketed servitors drew corks and filled glasses, and then the best man pulled himself to his feet, propped himself between the arm of his chair and the table and commanded order that he might be heard. “There is a pudding coming,” he began, “and in view of the fact that I invented it myself I would like to have you fellows sit up and take notice.”

Then he motioned to the head waiter and sank back in his chair. Five men, each one holding up his end of a platform about four feet square on which was a monstrous concoction of pastry, staggered in. A vacant place had been cleared on the table, and when it was placed in position a yell went up from the crowd.

“I’ll take a slice off the top,” sang the bridegroom, as he waved a glass of wine aloft.

“Cut it, Bill,” said the best man, and one of the waiters, grinning, went at it with a huge carving knife. He slit it from top to bottom in two places, and as the crust crumbled away half a dozen birds fluttered out, and when the pastry cook’s creation was demolished there was disclosed a young woman rather scantily draped and with a figure worth missing a train for.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” she said, smiling, and then she stepped out.

People who make a study of such things will tell you for every man in the world there is just one woman who belongs to him. They may be thousands of miles apart, and it may so happen that they will never meet, but the fact remains that they were intended for each other just the same. He may marry and she may marry, but there will be no real, true happiness until they live their lives together. When this girl, trim and slim but shapely, stood on the table, the man who was going to be married looked on her and knew then that there was no other woman in the world for him—not even the one whom he had promised to marry. The others stood up and cheered and applauded her, while he sat there staring almost stupidly. Her bronze hair tumbled down over her bare shoulders and her laughing eyes took in the scene.

“And who is the one who is going to be married?” she asked smilingly. “I want to drink with him.”

“Get on your pins, old man, and drink with the lady,” called one, and he obediently arose and held a glass of wine toward her.

“So you are the one?” she asked, looking him over critically. “Well, here is that the woman you marry is as good a fellow as you look to be.”

That was at midnight.

When the clock struck two every guest was still in his place, and seated in the lap of the man at the head of the table—the host, the man who was to marry, become straightened out, and shake the crowd—was the girl. He had one arm around her, and they were drinking out of the same glass. Of course it wasn’t at all proper, but you see everything goes at a bachelor’s dinner, and in view of the fact that this was a last wild fling, apparently, it was all right. It was nobody’s business, anyhow, for a man may do as he likes even if he is on the verge of his own wedding.

“You will surely call,” she was saying between sips.

“Surely,” was the answer, “if you will allow me.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Then I will call anyhow.”

“Now you’re just the kind of a man I like,” she whispered. “But what are you going to do after you’re married?”

“I don’t think I will marry,” he said; “at least I’ll not marry the girl I intended. You and I are going to talk that over, because——”

“Why, I’ve only known you about two hours.”

“It wouldn’t make any difference if you’d only known me two minutes, it would be just the same.”

“I suppose so, but you see a good many men have talked to me like that, and promised me everything, but it’s always the same in the end. Men say things that they mean at the time, but it doesn’t last.”

He was really in earnest, though he was drunk, and the next afternoon, when he was sober enough to know what he was doing, he wrote a note to his fiancee, telling her that he was sorry, but it was all off. There were reasons, of course, but he couldn’t explain, and would she kindly release him from his engagement, which had been entered into too hastily, etc., etc. You know the old story.

In the end he got his freedom in a tear-stained letter, then he went and threw a high-ball under his belt and squared away for the pudding girl.

She was making about $40 a week and living at the rate of about $150, it didn’t take a wise man to see that, and so he was on the moment he looked over the ranch. But it cut no figure with him at all, for he was too well satisfied to be bothered about a trifle like that, especially at the start of the hunt, so he took things as they came and made the best of them.

One night he was there, and they had become confidential.

“Who did it all?” he asked, as he waved his hand to take in the elaborate furnishings of the room.

“So you have reached the curious stage?” she asked. “What do you want to know for?” “Because I think so well of you that I want to do all this sort of thing myself. Who did it?”

She looked thoughtfully out of the window for a moment, and then, as if she had suddenly made up her mind, she turned and said:

“Would it make any difference to you if you knew?”

“Not a bit.”

“Not even if it was someone whom you knew?”

“Not even then.”

When she told him the name it was that of his best friend, the one who was going to be his best man at the wedding.

Here was a complication.

Now you can see what an apparently harmless dinner did.

It wasn’t very long ago, so it’s only a step down to the present day.

The Hungarian gypsy band in a big cafe uptown was playing its head off, and every table was occupied. Over in one of the corners—a choice position, by the way—at a table on which were half a dozen empty wine bottles, sat two men and a woman. If you will look at them again you will notice that their faces are very familiar. Yes, that’s right, it is the pudding girl, the brewer’s son and the man who was going to be next to the real one at the big show when two were made one and the minister was paid double for working overtime. All three are a bit unsteady, naturally, for the soldiers on the table tell the story, consequently they are well primed for a scene of this kind.

The brewer’s son is talking to the other man, and the girl is playing a listening part, and playing it well.

“You only think you love,” he says, “but all you have done is to spend a few hundred dollars—or thousands, it makes no difference. You’d spend it anyhow in some other way. I’ve broken off my marriage for her, and that’s something. You’re a friend of mine and why don’t you let go?”

“That’s all right, and I agree to what you say. I haven’t the money I once had, and I don’t think I can keep the pace up much longer, but I don’t want to see Maud go up against it. She’s used to nice things. Suppose the Governor turns on you and cuts you off, what are you going to do then? You won’t have any more chance than I have. I know you’re all right now, but Maud’s got to be taken care of, and if I can do anything to put her on Easy Street I’ll do it.”

He reached for a half empty bottle and refilled his glass. He drank slowly and when he had finished he went on.

“Have you got as much as $10,000?” he asked, abruptly.

“Easy that.”

“I mean ready money?”

“Yes, ready money.”

“Then I’ll tell you what I’ll do. You put $10,000 in the bank in Maud’s name and I’ll quit, but you also got to promise me that you will look after her and do everything for her that she wants. How about that, Maudie, all right?”

As he spoke he patted her caressingly on the shoulder while the brewer’s son, flushed to the roots of his hair with the wine he had drank, dived into an inside pocket for his check book.

“Will you be the best man, Joe?” “Best man for what?” the girl spoke for the first time.

“For our wedding, of course.”

“Not so you can pay any particular attention to it. You’ll have to chloroform me to get me in front of a minister. I’m no Sunday-school scholar, and no man can own me. I believe every woman should be independent, and when a woman marries she not only sacrifices her freedom, but herself. I like you both, and I’m glad to know that I’m worth $10,000 to you,” and she nodded toward the brewer’s son. “For that I’ll play fair with you, and if we ever agree to disagree we’ll do it like two good fellows. Joe, don’t forget to come around and take dinner with us once in a while, will you?”

P.S.—A story in a daily newspaper published later tells about the son of a wealthy brewer committing suicide by shooting, in his home in a town near New York. The cause for the rash act is not known. Strange that it should be the man who was going to reform, but didn’t, isn’t it?