“Don’t take any stock in her nonsense,” the Fraction King warned, “She just does it a-purpose to get me mad.”

“Now then!” she commanded, sharply.  “Step up to your licker!  ’Ere’s ’ow!”

“What’ll it be?” cried Blanche from the stove.

The elevated mugs wavered and halted.

“The Queen, Gawd bless ’er!” the Virgin toasted promptly.

“And Bill!” Del Bishop interrupted.

Again the mugs wavered.

“Bill ’oo?” the Virgin asked, suspiciously.

“McKinley.”

She favored him with a smile.  “Thank you, cookie, you’re a trump.  Now!  ’Ere’s a go, gents!  Take it standing.  The Queen, Gawd bless ’er, and Bill McKinley!”

“Bottoms up!” thundered Jake Cornell, and the mugs smote the table with clanging rims.

Vance Corliss discovered himself amused and interested.  According to Frona, he mused ironically,—­this was learning life, was adding to his sum of human generalizations.  The phrase was hers, and he rolled it over a couple of times.  Then, again, her engagement with St. Vincent crept into his thought, and he charmed the Virgin by asking her to sing.  But she was coy, and only after Bishop had rendered the several score stanzas of “Flying Cloud” did she comply.  Her voice, in a weakly way, probably registered an octave and a half; below that point it underwent strange metamorphoses, while on the upper levels it was devious and rickety.  Nevertheless she sang “Take Back Your Gold” with touching effect, which brought a fiery moisture into the eyes of the Fraction King, who listened greedily, for the time being experiencing unwonted ethical yearnings.

The applause was generous, followed immediately by Bishop, who toasted the singer as the “Enchantress of Bow Bells,” to the reverberating “bottoms up!” of Jake Cornell.

Two hours later, Frona Welse rapped.  It was a sharp, insistent rap, penetrating the din within and bringing Corliss to the door.

She gave a glad little cry when she saw who it was.  “Oh; it is you, Vance!  I didn’t know you lived here.”

He shook hands and blocked the doorway with his body.  Behind him the Virgin was laughing and Jake Cornell roaring: 

  “Oh, cable this message along the track;
  The Prod’s out West, but he’s coming back;
  Put plenty of veal for one on the rack,
    Trolla lala, la la la, la la!”

“What is it?” Vance questioned.  “Anything up?”

“I think you might ask me in.”  There was a hint of reproach in Frona’s voice, and of haste.  “I blundered through the ice, and my feet are freezing.”

“O Gawd!” in the exuberant tones of the Virgin, came whirling over Vance’s shoulder, and the voices of Blanche and Bishop joining in a laugh against Cornell, and that worthy’s vociferous protestations.  It seemed to him that all the blood of his body had rushed into his face.  “But you can’t come in, Frona.  Don’t you hear them?”