after she had scurried through it. She was well known and chiefly
distinguished by a large court-plaster crescent which she wore on her
left shoulder blade. She enjoyed the bounty of a Wall Street broker
who for one day had attained the conspicuousness of cornering the egg
market.

There were two or three others within this group. A Mrs. Denison, half
French, and a younger girl called Babe. But Mrs. Drew and Hester were
intimates. They dwaddled daily in one or the other's apartment, usually
lazy and lacy with negligée, lounging about on the mounds of lingerie
pillows over chocolates, cigarettes, novels, Pomeranians, and always the
headache powders, nerve sedatives, or smelling salts, a running line of:
"Lord! I've a head!" "I need a good cry for the blues!" "Talk about a
dark-brown taste!" or, "There was some kick to those cocktails last
night," through their conversation.

KITTY: "Br-r-r! I'm as nervous as a cat to-day."

HESTER: "Naughty, naughty bad doggie to bite muvver's diamond ring."

KITTY: "Leave it to you to land a pear-shaped diamond on your hooks."

HESTER: "He fell for it, just like that!"

KITTY: "You could milk a billiard ball."

HESTER: "I don't see any 'quality of mercy' to spare around your flat."

There were the two years of high school, you see.