‘It’s terrible,’ said the lady in the tiara addressing herself to a man with a long face the color of tobacco who sat at the end of the table… ‘It’s terrible, Colonel, the way Gilly gets blasphemous when he’s been drinking…’
The Colonel was meticulously rolling the tinfoil off a cigar. ‘Dear me, you dont say?’ he drawled. Above the bristly gray mustache his face was expressionless. ‘There’s a most dreadful story about poor old Atkins, Elliott Atkins who used to be with Mansfield…’
‘Indeed?’ said the Colonel icily as he slit the end of the cigar with a small pearlhandled penknife.
‘Say Chester did you hear that Mabie Evans was making a hit?’
‘Honestly Olga I dont see how she does it. She has no figure…’
‘Well he made a speech, drunk as a lord you understand, one night when they were barnstorming in Kansas…’
‘She cant sing…’
‘The poor fellow never did go very strong in the bright lights…’
‘She hasnt the slightest particle of figure…’
‘And made a sort of Bob Ingersoll speech . .’
‘The dear old feller… Ah I knew him well out in Chicago in the old days…’
‘You dont say.’ The Colonel held a lighted match carefully to the end of his cigar…
‘And there was a terrible flash of lightning and a ball of fire came in one window and went out the other.’
‘Was he… er… killed?’ The Colonel sent a blue puff of smoke towards the ceiling.
‘What, did you say Bob Ingersoll had been struck by lightning?’ cried Olga shrilly. ‘Serve him right the horrid atheist.’
‘No not exactly, but it scared him into a realization of the important things of life and now he’s joined the Methodist church.’
‘Funny how many actors get to be ministers.’
‘Cant get an audience any other way,’ creaked the man with the diamond stud.
The two waiters hovered outside the door listening to the racket inside. ‘Tas de sacrés cochons… sporca madonna!’ hissed the old waiter. Emile shrugged his shoulders. ‘That brunette girl make eyes at you all night…’ He brought his face near Emile’s and winked. ‘Sure, maybe you pick up somethin good.’
‘I dont want any of them or their dirty diseases either.’
The old waiter slapped his thigh. ‘No young men nowadays… When I was young man I take heap o chances.’
‘They dont even look at you…’ said Emile through clenched teeth. ‘An animated dress suit that’s all.’
‘Wait a minute, you learn by and by.’
The door opened. They bowed respectfully towards the diamond stud. Somebody had drawn a pair of woman’s legs on his shirtfront. There was a bright flush on each of his cheeks. The lower lid of one eye sagged, giving his weasle face a quizzical lobsided look.
‘Wazzahell, Marco wazzahell?’ he was muttering. ‘We aint got a thing to drink… Bring the Atlantic Ozz-shen and two quarts.’
‘De suite monsieur…’ The old waiter bowed. ‘Emile tell Auguste, immediatement et bien frappé.’
As Emile went down the corridor he could hear singing.
The moonface and the bottlenose were coming back from the lavatory reeling arm in arm among the palms in the hall.
‘These damn fools make me sick.’
‘Yessir these aint the champagne suppers we used to have in Frisco in the ole days.’
‘Ah those were great days those.’
‘By the way,’ the moonfaced man steadied himself against the wall, ‘Holyoke ole fella, did you shee that very nobby little article on the rubber trade I got into the morning papers… That’ll make the investors nibble… like lil mishe.’
‘Whash you know about rubber?… The stuff aint no good.’
‘You wait an shee, Holyoke ole fella or you looshing opportunity of your life… Drunk or sober I can smell money… on the wind.’
‘Why aint you got any then?’ The bottlenosed man’s beefred face went purple; he doubled up letting out great hoots of laughter.
‘Because I always let my friends in on my tips,’ said the other man soberly. ‘Hay boy where’s zis here private dinin room?’
‘Par ici monsieur.’
A red accordionpleated dress swirled past them, a little oval face framed by brown flat curls, pearly teeth in an open-mouthed laugh.
‘Fifi Waters,’ everyone shouted. ‘Why my darlin lil Fifi, come to my arms.’
She was lifted onto a chair where she stood jiggling from one foot to the other, champagne dripping out of a tipped glass.
‘Merry Christmas.’
‘Happy New Year.’
‘Many returns of the day…’
A fair young man who had followed her in was reeling intricately round the table singing:
‘Hoopla,’ cried Fifi Waters and mussed the gray hair of the man with the diamond stud. ‘Hoopla.’ She jumped down with a kick, pranced round the room, kicking high with her skirts fluffed up around her knees.
‘Oh la la ze French high kicker!’
‘Look out for the Pony Ballet.’
Her slender legs, shiny black silk stockings tapering to red rosetted slippers flashed in the men’s faces.
‘She’s a mad thing,’ cried the lady in the tiara.
Hoopla. Holyoke was swaying in the doorway with his top hat tilted over the glowing bulb of his nose. She let out a whoop and kicked it off.
‘It’s a goal,’ everyone cried.
‘For crissake you kicked me in the eye.’
She stared at him a second with round eyes and then burst into tears on the broad shirtfront of the diamond stud. ‘I wont be insulted like that,’ she sobbed.
‘Rub the other eye.’
‘Get a bandage someone.’
‘Goddam it she may have put his eye out.’
‘Call a cab there waiter.’
‘Where’s a doctor?’
‘That’s hell to pay ole fella.’
A handkerchief full of tears and blood pressed to his eye the bottlenosed man stumbled out. The men and women crowded through the door after him; last went the blond young man, reeling and singing:
Fifi Waters was sobbing with her head on the table.
‘Don’t cry Fifi,’ said the Colonel who was still sitting where he had sat all the evening. ‘Here’s something I rather fancy might do you good.’ He pushed a glass of champagne towards her down the table.
She sniffled and began drinking it in little sips. ‘Hullo Roger, how’s the boy?’
‘The boy’s quite well thank you… Rather bored, dont you know? An evening with such infernal bounders…’
‘I’m hungry.’
‘There doesnt seem to be anything left to eat.’
‘I didnt know you’d be here or I’d have come earlier, honest.’
‘Would you indeed?… Now that’s very nice.’
The long ash dropped from the Colonel’s cigar; he got to his feet. ‘Now Fifi, I’ll call a cab and we’ll go for a ride in the Park…’
She drank down her champagne and nodded brightly. ‘Dear me it’s four o’clock…’ ‘You have the proper wraps haven’t you?’
She nodded again.
‘Splendid Fifi… I say you are in form.’ The Colonel’s cigarcolored face was unraveling in smiles. ‘Well, come along.’
She looked about her in a dazed way. ‘Didnt I come with somebody?’