"There's Moe Marx from Kansas City just coming in! Spy the blonde he's with, will you? I guess Moe is used to that from home, nix! There's a firm, Marx-Jastrow, made a mint last year." "Look!" The lights had sunk down, the sea of faces receding into fog. The buzz died, too, and doors were swung against the steady shuffle of incomers. From behind the curtains a chime tonged roundly and in one key. One--two--three--four--five--six--seven--eight--nine--ten--eleven --twelve! Then the orange curtains parted and on a gilded dais the width of the room, in startling relief against a purple circle the size of a tower clock, the Old Year, hoar on his beard and with limbs that shivered in an attitude of abdication, held out an hourglass to a pink-legged cherub with a gold band in his or her short curls. A shout went up and a great clanging of forks against frail glass, the pop of corks and the quick fizz ensuing. The curtains closed and the lights flashed up. Time had just sailed another knot into space, and who cared? At a center table a woman's slipper was already going the rounds. It began to sag and wine to ooze through the brocade. "Well, Hermie, here's a happy New Year to you!" "And to you, Sam, and many of 'em!" "To ma and Etta and grandma!" "To Kahn, Loeb & Schulien!" "To Kahn, Loeb & Schulien and that to this time next year we got the Men's Clothing Annex." They drank in solemn libation. The curtains had parted again. A Pierrot, chalky white, whistled in three registers, soprano, bass, and baser. A row of soubrettes rollicked in and out again in a flash of bushy skirts. "Say, look at the third one from this end with the black curls all bobbing. I'm for her!" "Where?" "Gone now!" Mr. Kahn leaned across his singing glass, his eye quickened into a wink. "Old man, you can pull that woman-hater stuff on the home folks, but it takes your brother-in-law to lead you to the live ones. Eh?" "You dry up," said Mr. Loeb, peering between the halves of a sandwich. On a glass runway built over the heads of the assembled, a crystal aisle for satin feet, the row of soubrettes suddenly appeared, peering over the crystal rail, singing down upon the sea of marcelled, bald, and dead heads. Men, sheepish of their smiles but with the small heels overhead clanging like castanets into their spirits, dared to glance up. "Gad, Herman! What'll they think up next? Whatta you know about that--all those little devils dancing right over our heads!" "There she is!" "Who?" "The little one in the boy's black-satin suit, with the black curls bobbing!" "Watch out, Herm! You'll die of crick in the neck." "I don't see any blinkers on you!" "Hey, old man! Your mouth's open." "I know. I opened it," said Mr. Loeb, his head back and eyes that were suddenly bold staring up at the twinkling aisle. At a table adjoining, a man reached up, flecking one of the tiny black-satin feet with a whirl of his napkin.