And then began the gay-dog business in the life of Jo Hertz. He
developed into a Loop-hound, ever keen on the scent of fresh
pleasure. That side of Jo Hertz which had been repressed and
crushed and ignored began to bloom, unhealthily. At first he
spent money on his rather contemptuous nieces. He sent them
gorgeous furs, and watch bracelets, and bags. He took two
expensive rooms at a downtown hotel, and there was something more
tear-compelling than grotesque about the way he gloated over the
luxury of a separate ice-water tap in the bathroom. He explained
it.

"Just turn it on. Any hour of the day or night. Ice water!"

He bought a car. Naturally. A glittering affair; in color a
bright blue, with pale-blue leather straps and a great deal of
gold fittings, and special tires. Eva said it was the kind of
thing a chorus girl would use, rather than an elderly
businessman. You saw him driving about in it, red-faced and
rather awkward at the wheel. You saw him, too, in the Pompeian
Room at the Congress Hotel of a Saturday afternoon when
roving-eyed matrons in mink coats are wont to congregate to sip
pale-amber drinks. Actors grew to recognize the semibald head and
the shining, round, good- natured face looming out at them from
the dim well of the theater, and sometimes, in a musical show,
they directed a quip at him, and he liked it. He could pick out
the critics as they came down the aisle, and even had a nodding
acquaintance with two of them.

"Kelly, of the Herald," he would say carelessly. "Bean. of