tables. A thin-faced man with bloodshot eyes. He walks as if he were half
asleep. The crowd swallows him and Izzy laughs again without mirth.

"He's done for the night. That's low down of Jerry. But Jerry says it gets
his goat to see this daffy guy comin' in here night after night and
leadin' the band from the table. So the smoke blows that sour note every
time his nobs gets started on his conductin' and it always knocks his nobs
for a gool. He never stays another minute, but lights out right away.

"Look, there's his dame. The one wit' the green hat, sittin' wit' the guy
with the cheaters over there. Yeah, that's her. I don't know why she ain't
wit' him tonight. Prob'ly a lovers' quarrel." And Izzy grinned. "She's a
tough one, take it from me. I don't know how she hooked the professor, but
she did. She used to be swelled up about him. And once she got him a job
in Buxbaum's old place, she told me, to work in the orchestra. But his
nobs kicked. Said he'd cut his throat before playin' in a roughneck
orchestra and who did she think he was to do such a thing? He says to her:
I'm Weintraub--Weintraub, d'ye understand?' And he hauls off and wallops
her one and she guve up tryin' to get him a job. It makes her sore to
watch him sittin' around like tonight and conductin' the orchestra. She
says it ain't because he's daffy, but on account of his bein' stuck up."

The woman with the green hat had left her table. Izzy's shrewd eyes picked
her out again--this time standing against a far wall talking to the
professor, and the professor was rubbing his forehead and saying "No, no,"
with his hands.

And now the entertainer was singing again:

"Got de St. Louis Blues, jes' as blue as Ah can be,