calm and knowing voice. Women whose bodies and faces are like shells of
evil; vicious seeming men with a rasp in their laughter. These are among
those present. Aphrodite is a blousy wench in the 35th and State streets
neighborhood. And her votaries, although they offer an impressive
ensemble, are a sorry lot taken face by face.

Izzy, who is an old timer, sits at a table and takes it in. Izzy's eyes
and ears have learned to pick details in a bedlam. He can talk softly and
listen easily through the height of the cabaret racket. The scene hits
Izzy as water hits a duck's back.

"Well," he says, "it's a good night tonight. The slummers are out in full
force rubberin' at each other. Well, this is a funny world, take it from
me. Me? Huh, I come here every night or so to have a little drink and look
'em over for a while. Ain't nothing to see but a lot o' molls and a lot of
sucker guys. Them? Say, they never learn no better. Tough guys ain't no
different from soft guys, see? They all fall for the dames just as hard
and just as worse. There's many a good guy in this place that's been gave
a tumble by them, see?

"There, I got an idee he'd blow in tonight. He ain't missed a Saturday
night for months. And he usu'lly makes it four or five times a week. That
guy over there wit' the mop o' gray hair. Yeah, that's him. Well, he's the
professor. I spotted him in the district a year or so ago. He had a dame
wit' him who I know, see? A terrible broad. Say, maybe you've heard of
him. His name is Weintraub. I picked it up from the dame he's goin' wit',
see? He ought to be in your line. He was a reg'lar music professor before
he come down. The leader of a swell orchestra somewhere in the east or in
Europe, I guess. The dame don't know for sure, but she told me he was some
baby on music.