"Say, Herman, enough is enough! You'll have her here at the table next. It's like Al Suss always says, the reason he woke up one morning and found himself married to the first pony in the sextet was because he stuck a stamp upside down on a letter to her and found he could be held for a proposal in stamp language." To a great flare of the Negroid music, the row of twenty-four suddenly turned turtle, and prone on a strip of rug, heads to audience and faces to ceiling, twenty-four pairs of legs, ankleted in bells, kicked up a syncopated melody. From a Niagara of lace, insteps quivered an arpeggio. A chromatic scale bounced off a row of rapidly pointing toes. The third from the end, seized with sudden chill, quivered into grace notes, small pink feet kicking violently to the chandelier. Men red with laughter pounded their plates. The rhythmic convulsion passed down the prostrate line, forty-eight little feet twinkled a grand finale, and the curtains swung, then opened, remaining so. The line of twenty-four danced down and across the wide hair-line that separates life and stage, butterflies sipping from table to table. The cabaret was done. Lights resumed, and the business of food and drink. Mr. Loeb flung out an arm, pulling awry a carefully averted pink sash. "Say, little Jingle Bells, you and your friend!" "Cut it out, Herm! If we want to be down on Cedar Street by--" "What's your hurry, little one?" "It ain't mine; it belongs to the management." "Won't you join us?" "Herm, that job-lot of sweaters--" "Oh, come on, little Jingle Bells!" "My friend, too?" "Sure your friend." They teetered, the two of them like animated dolls, arm in arm, and so at ease. "Here, you little Black Curls, sit next to me, and you, Blondey, over there by my brother-in-law." "What'll you have, girls?" "Anchovies and fine-chopped onions for mine. Tell 'em in the kitchen, waiter, I said _fine_, and if the gentlemen are going to order wine, bring me a plate of oyster crackers first to take off the edge of my emptiness." "Sure, another bottle of wine, waiter." "Hermie, we--" "And you, little Jingle Bells, same as Blondey's order?" "Yeh." "Say, you know what?" "No. What?" "I fell for those bouncing black curls of yours before I was in the place five minutes." At that there was an incredible flow of baby talk. "Gemmemen ike ikkie gurl wiz naughty-naughty black curl-curlies?" "You bet your life I do," said Mr. Loeb, unashamed of comprehension. Mr. Kahn flashed another look at his watch. "Say, don't you know, you girls oughtn't to keep us boys up so late. Ain't there no wear out to you?" The yellow curls to his right bounced sharply. "He asks if there's a wear out to us, Cleone? I wish it to you this minute, Baldy, that you had the muscles in the back of my legs. I guess you think it's choice for us girls to come out on the floor after the show!" "Sylvette!"