“Say, here’s the big jest in our set.  You know, Olga Jones and her husband don’t get along very well together.  Their temperaments don’t jibe.

“Well, her soul mate and she had given hubby the slip and were down in my apartments putting on the finishing touches to the big eats.  Soul Mate was telling the story of his life to Olga when in kicks the dame that Soul Mate had formerly been in love with.

“They are both wise people and neither tip their mit, though Soul Mate grew restless with his feet.  This was about 4 a.m. and the mere shank of the evening, as it were.  When all of a sudden, Bing!  Bing! on the door and in waltzed Olga’s handicap, who had been out and soaked up a souse, and not finding little wifey when he returned to the hut, he starts out on a still hunt and ropes in my shack.

“Hubby comes in carrying weight for grouch and pipes party of five—­Blonde Party, Olga, Soul Mate, Wilbur and me.  Calls down wifey for not coming home.  Business of language.  I kick in and tells him to have a drink.  Nothing to it.  Oil on the troubled waters looked like an also ran.

“Hubby was perfectly content and after a drink or two he beat it, telling wifey to hurry home.  Fine.  Blonde Party finds she is fifth wheel and also ducks.  Then Olga lands on Soul Mate.  ’Who is this peroxide party?’

“‘Only an old passing fancy,’ chirrups Soul Mate.

“Olga tears her hair and bites out a bunch of hectic language about having the only man she ever loved being false, and how life is naught but a hollow bubble and all that kind of rot.  Wilbur having sporting blood was for kidding them on and seeing if they would mix it, but me desiring peace and quiet told what I didn’t know about the affair and squared things.  Business of embracing.

“Did you pipe the sassy half-sheets Mr. McManus got out for the Friar Festival?  Ain’t they just too pretty for words?  Do you know who that guy reading the Friar song down in the corner is?  Don’t breathe a word and I’ll tell you.  It’s Phil Mindel.  Honest it is.  George sketched it from life one night over at the Booze Arts.

“Us chorus girls were talking of marching to Albany in a body with drums beating and flags flying and demanding that the anti-betting bill be ditched.  It is something fierce the way these reformers are trying to put the bee on our pleasures.

“I just dote on horse races.  Why, I can go to the track and sit in the cafe for hours.  I wonder what these guys think we are going to do with our spare time this summer?  Sit at home and make sofa pillows?  Why, there is no greater sport in the world than riding out to Sheepshead or Jamaica in an auto and then borrowing money from your escort to bet on the patty-pats.  It’s a great system.  If you lose the John gets nothing, and if you win you take everything, so it is fair for all parties.

“If they want to do something truly noble they should put those moving picture shows out of business.  Pretty soon when they want the chorus to show up they will let down a sheet, throw on the picture and turn loose, ‘Welcome, your highness, welcome’ on the phonograph.  I ain’t mentioning any names, but there is a bunch of these parties that belong on a moving picture.