Strolling through the shaaaaady lanes, with your baby-mine, You hold her hand and she holds yours, and that’s a very good sign That she’s your tootsey-wootsey in the good old summer time. Elmer wept a little, and blubbered, “Lez go out and start a scrap. You’re lil squirt, Jim. You get somebody to pick on you, and I’ll come along and knock his block off. I’ll show ’em!” His voice flared up. He was furious at the wrong about to be suffered. He arched his paws with longing to grasp the non-existent scoundrel. “By God, I’ll knock the tar out of um! Nobody can touch _my_ roommate! Know who I am? Elmer Gantry! Thash me! I’ll show um!” The bartender was shuffling toward them, amiably ready for homicide. “Shut up, Hell-cat. What you need is ’nother drink. I’ll get ’nother drink,” soothed Jim, and Elmer slid into tears, weeping over the ancient tragic sorrows of one whom he remembered as Jim Lefferts. Instantly, by some tricky sort of magic, there were two glasses in front of him. He tasted one, and murmured foolishly, “’Scuse me.” It was the chaser, the water. But they couldn’t fool him! The whisky would certainly be in that other lil sawed-off glass. And it was. He was right, as always. With a smirk of self-admiration he sucked in the raw Bourbon. It tickled his throat and made him feel powerful, and at peace with every one save that fellow—he could not recall who, but it was some one whom he would shortly chastise, and after that float into an Elysium of benevolence. The barroom was deliriously calming. The sour invigorating stench of beer made him feel healthy. The bar was one long shimmer of beauty—glowing mahogany, exquisite marble rail, dazzling glasses, curiously shaped bottles of unknown liqueurs, piled with a craftiness which made him very happy. The light was dim, completely soothing, coming through fantastic windows such as are found only in churches, saloons, jewelry shops, and other retreats from reality. On the brown plaster walls were sleek naked girls. He turned from them. He was empty now of desire for women. “That damn’ Juanita. Jus’ wants to get all she can out of you. That’s all,” he grumbled. But there was an interesting affair beside him. A piece of newspaper sprang up, apparently by itself, and slid along the floor. That was a very funny incident, and he laughed greatly. He was conscious of a voice which he had been hearing for centuries, echoing from a distant point of light and flashing through ever-widening corridors of a dream. “We’ll get kicked out of here, Hell-cat. Come on!” He floated up. It was exquisite. His legs moved by themselves, without effort. They did a comic thing once—they got twisted and the right leg leaped in front of the left when, so far as he could make out, it should have been behind. He laughed, and rested against some one’s arm, an arm with no body attached to it, which had come out of the _Ewigkeit_ to assist him.