his
taxicab.

"The Bizarre!" wheezed he to the chauffeur; and dodging in, banged the
door.

As for P. Sybarite, he watched the vehicle swing away and round the
corner of Seventh Avenue, a doubtful glimmer in eyes that had burned
hot with hostility, a slight ironic smile wreathing lips that had
shown hatred.

"But what's the good of that?" he said in self-disgust, as the taxicab
disappeared.

With a sigh, shaking himself together, he went into Dutch House.

XIV

WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD

From street door to restaurant entrance, the hallway of Dutch House
was some twenty-five feet long, floored with grimy linoleum in
imitation of tiling, greasy as to its walls and ceiling, and boasting
an atmosphere rank with a reek compounded of a dozen elements, in
their number alcohol, cheap perfumery, cooked meats, the sweat of
unclean humanity, and stale tobacco smoke.

Save for this unsavoury composite wraith, the hall was empty when P.
Sybarite entered it. But it echoed with sounds of rowdy revelry from
the room in back: mechanical clatter of galled and spavined piano,
despondent growling of a broken-winded 'cello, nervous giggling and
moaning of an excoriated violin--the three wringing from the score of
_O You Beautiful Doll_ an entirely adequate accompaniment to the
perfunctory performance of a husky contralto.

Though by no means squeamish, on the testimony of his nose and ears P.
Sybarite then and there concluded that he would have to have become
exceedingly blase indeed to find Dutch House amusing.

And when he had gone on into the restaurant itself, slipping his
modest person inconspicuously into a chair at the nearest unoccupied
table, the testimony of his other senses as to the character of his
company served to confirm this impression.

"It's no use," he sighed: "I'm too old a dog.... Be it ever so
typical, there's _no_ place like one's own hash-foundry." ...

This room was broad and deep, and boasted, at its far end, a miniature
stage supporting the orchestra and, temporarily, the gyrations of a
lady in a vivacious scarlet costume--mistress of the shopworn
contralto--who was "vamping with the feet" the interval between two
verses of her ballad.

The main floor was strewn with tables round which sat a motley
gathering of gangsters, fools, pretty iniquities and others by no
stretch of the imagination to be termed pretty, confidence men,
gambling touts, and the sprinkling of drunkards--plain, co