in a minute who'll let us out for fifty cents. None of
us here ever gets in or out of anything by ourselves.
It's bad form. Ah, here he is!"

A moment later we had passed through the portals of a
great restaurant, and found ourselves surrounded with
all the colour and tumult of a New York dinner _a la
mode_. A burst of wild music, pounded and thrummed out
on ukuleles by a group of yellow men in Hawaiian costume,
filled the room, helping to drown or perhaps only serving
to accentuate the babel of talk and the clatter of dishes
that arose on every side. Men in evening dress and women
in all the colours of the rainbow, _decollete_ to a
degree, were seated at little tables, blowing blue smoke
into the air, and drinking green and yellow drinks from
glasses with thin stems. A troupe of _cabaret_ performers
shouted and leaped on a little stage at the side of the
room, unheeded by the crowd.

"Ha ha!" said Knickerbocker, as we drew in our chairs to
a table. "Some place, eh? There's a peach! Look at her!
Or do you like better that lazy-looking brunette next to
her?"

Mr. Knickerbocker was staring about the room, gazing at
the women with open effrontery, and a senile leer upon
his face. I felt ashamed of him. Yet, oddly enough, no
one about us seemed in the least disturbed.

"Now, what cocktail will you have?" said my companion.