isplay the ability to dance the Tango I'd be
broken-hearted. Naturally, I'd know that he must have learned it with a
wicked companion in some lawless cabaret. And if he frequented cabarets
without my knowledge--oh, Alice, what _would_ I do?"

I looked at Bunch, he looked at me, and then we both looked out the
window.

"For my part," Alice went on, "I trust Bunch so implicitly that I don't
even question his motive when he telephones me he has to take dinner in
town with a prospective real estate customer."

"And I know enough of human nature," Peaches gurgled, "to be sure that
if either one of them could Tango he would be crazy to show off at home.
I think we're very lucky, both of us, to have such steady-going
husbands, don't you, Alice?"

At this point Aunt Martha buzzed into the other room and the cackle took
on another complexion.

In the meantime Bunch and I had passed away.

"It's cold turkey," I whispered.

"I've been in the refrigerator for ten minutes and I'm chilled to the
bone," Bunch whispered back.

"Can we get our coin away from Ikey?" I asked.

"We can try," Bunch sneezed.

The next afternoon we had Ikey Schwartz for luncheon with us at the St.
Astorbilt. The idea being to dazzle him and get a few of the iron men
back.

"Leave everything to me," Bunch growled as we shaved our hats and
Indian-filed to a trough.

"A quart of Happysuds," Bunch ordered. "How about it, Ikey?"

Ikey flashed a grin and tried to swallow his palate, so it wouldn't
interfere with the wet spell suggested by Bunch.

Ikey belonged to the "dis, dose and dem" push.

Every long sentence he uttered was full of splintered grammar.

Every time Ikey opened his word-chest the King's English screamed for
help, and literature got a kick in the slats.

He was short and thin, but it was a deceptive thinness. His capacity for
storing away free liquids was awe-inspiring and a sin.

I think Ikey must have been hollow from the neck to the ankles, with
emergency bulkheads in both feet.

His nose was shaped like a quarter to six o'clock. It began in the
middle and rushed both ways as hard as it could. One end of it ducked
into his forehead and never did come out.

His interior was sponge-lined, and when the bartenders began to send
them in fast, Ikey would lower an asbestos curtain to keep the fumes
away from his brain.

Nobody ever saw Ikey at high tide.

There was surely something wrong with Ikey's switchboard, because he