Meantime, for those whose wallets are still bulging and who are undaunted by the dazzlingly large gems in the windows, "La Favorite" will be on view in about two weeks at the House of Graff on Madison Avenue, near 63rd Street.

Puck disappeared, but Matt's wallet bulged ominously, and Puck's muffled voice cried, "En avant!"

No wallet bulged there, and no pocket.

"If you want to know what guys really talk about, this is it," said Richard M. Neustadt, a senior adviser at Galway Partners, a Washington, D.C., telecommunications company, whose wallet bulges with gold and platinum cards.

For years, my life fluctuated between the months following a remortgage, when my wallet bulged with virgin credit cards and my bank balance was healthy, to periods when bills were slipped unopened into the drawer.

The result is that supplies are thin but wallets are bulging, and many experts say they believe that the overall inflation rate will pass 100 percent this year.

Why, they were Russians, and their wallets are bulging with greenbacks!