“The thing that worries me is that a lot of these guys will take to cocaine,” sighed Eddie Swanson.

They bobbed more violently, and groaned, “That’s so, there is a danger of that.”

Chum Frink chanted, “Oh, say, I got hold of a swell new receipt for home-made beer the other day.  You take—­”

Gunch interrupted, “Wait!  Let me tell you mine!” Littlefield snorted, “Beer!  Rats!  Thing to do is to ferment cider!” Jones insisted, “I’ve got the receipt that does the business!” Swanson begged, “Oh, say, lemme tell you the story—­” But Frink went on resolutely, “You take and save the shells from peas, and pour six gallons of water on a bushel of shells and boil the mixture till—­”

Mrs. Babbitt turned toward them with yearning sweetness; Frink hastened to finish even his best beer-recipe; and she said gaily, “Dinner is served.”

There was a good deal of friendly argument among the men as to which should go in last, and while they were crossing the hall from the living-room to the dining-room Vergil Gunch made them laugh by thundering, “If I can’t sit next to Myra Babbitt and hold her hand under the table, I won’t play—­I’m goin’ home.”  In the dining-room they stood embarrassed while Mrs. Babbitt fluttered, “Now, let me see—­Oh, I was going to have some nice hand-painted place-cards for you but—­Oh, let me see; Mr. Frink, you sit there.”

The dinner was in the best style of women’s-magazine art, whereby the salad was served in hollowed apples, and everything but the invincible fried chicken resembled something else.  Ordinarily the men found it hard to talk to the women; flirtation was an art unknown on Floral Heights, and the realms of offices and of kitchens had no alliances.  But under the inspiration of the cocktails, conversation was violent.  Each of the men still had a number of important things to say about prohibition, and now that each had a loyal listener in his dinner-partner he burst out: 

“I found a place where I can get all the hootch I want at eight a quart—­”

“Did you read about this fellow that went and paid a thousand dollars for ten cases of red-eye that proved to be nothing but water?  Seems this fellow was standing on the corner and fellow comes up to him—­”

“They say there’s a whole raft of stuff being smuggled across at Detroit—­”

“What I always say is—­what a lot of folks don’t realize about prohibition—­”

“And then you get all this awful poison stuff—­wood alcohol and everything—­”

“Course I believe in it on principle, but I don’t propose to have anybody telling me what I got to think and do.  No American ’ll ever stand for that!”

But they all felt that it was rather in bad taste for Orville Jones—­and he not recognized as one of the wits of the occasion anyway—­to say, “In fact, the whole thing about prohibition is this:  it isn’t the initial cost, it’s the humidity.”