I left Thomas scrambling about the mosaic lobby of the theater for his opera-hat.

When he recovered it, it resembled one of those accordions upon which vaudeville artists play Mendelssohn's Wedding March and the latest ragtime (by request).

Some one had stepped on it.

Among the unanswerable questions stands prominently: Why do we laugh when a man loses his hat?
Thomas burned with a mixture of rage and shame; shame that Kitty should witness his discomfiture and rage that, by the time he had retrieved the hat, the ghost had disappeared.
However, Thomas acted as a polished man of the world, as if eight-dollar opera-hats were mere nothings.

He held it out for Kitty to inspect, smiling.