“Dear Vernabelle,” she says, “has consented to give an evening cycle of dance portrayals for just a few of the choicer spirits.  I know there has been dreadful talk about our little group, but this will be a stunning bit and you are broad-minded, so do come.”

I could just see Vernabelle consenting, almost peevishly; but it sounded like it might be disorderly enough, so I says I’ll come if she promises to leave at least one window down at the top, me not having a gas mask.

Metta thinks a minute, then says she guesses she can leave one window down a mite; not much, on account of the nature of Vernabelle’s dance costume.  I says if such is to be the nature of her costume I’ll come anyway and risk being gassed.  Metta chides me gravely.  She says the costume is perfectly proper to the artist eye, being a darling little early Greek thing; built on simple lines that follow the figure, it is true, yet suggest rather than reveal, and if the early Greeks saw no harm in it why should we?  I tell her to say no more, but reserve me a ringside seat, though near a window if one can be opened; say, as far as the early Greeks would have done at such a time, on account of the punk sticks.

And of course I wouldn’t miss it.  I’m there at eight-thirty and find quite a bunch of Latin Quarter denizens already gathered and full of suppressed emotion.  The punk sticks, of course, are going strong.  Vernabelle in a pink kimono says they supply atmosphere; which is the only joke I ever heard her get off, if she knew it was one.  Bohemians Lon Price and Jeff Tuttle are hanging over the punch bowl, into which something illegal has been poured.  Jeff is calling Vernabelle little woman and telling her if worse comes to worst they might try being Bohemians on a mixture his men up on the ranch thought of for a New Year’s celebration.  He says they took a whole case of vanilla extract and mixed it with one dozen cans of condensed milk, the vanilla having a surprising kick in it and making ’em all feel like the good old days next morning.

Vernabelle says he reminds her of some untamed creature of the open, some woodsy monster of the dells, and Jeff says that’s just what he feels like.  He’s going on to tell her some more about what he feels like, but Vernabelle is now greeting Oswald Cummings, the pagan of splendid sins, from the Elite Bootery.  She tells Oswald there is a cold cruelty in the lines of his face that reminds her of the emperor Nero.

Finally about twenty choice spirits who did things was gathered for this half-lighted hour, so everybody set down on chairs and the couch and the floor, leaving a clear space for Vernabelle; and Professor Gluckstein, our music teacher, puts down his meerschaum pipe and goes to the piano and plays a soft piece.  The prof is a German, but not a pro-German, and plays first rate in the old-fashioned way, with his hands.  Then, when all the comrades get settled and their cigarettes lighted, the prof drifted into something quite mournful and Vernabelle appeared from behind a screen without her kimono.