He said he'd just as lief
see a woman take out a manicure set and do her nails in public, and I
assured him he probably would see it if he come down again next year,
the way things was going--him talking that way that had had his white
tie done in the open lobby; but men are such. Jake Berger just looked
around kindly and didn't open his head till near the end of the meal. I
thought he wasn't noticing anything at all till the orchestra put on a
shadow number with dim purple lights.
"You'll notice they do that," says Jake, "whenever a lot of these people
are ready to pay their checks. It saves fights, because no one can see
if they're added right or not." That was pretty gabby for Jake. Then I
listened again to Ben and his little pet. They was talking their way up
the Bowery from Atlantic Garden and over to Harry Hill's Place which,
it seemed the New Yorker didn't remember, and Ben then recalled an old
leper with gray whiskers and a skull cap that kept a drug store in
Bleecker Street when Ben was a kid and spent most of his time watering
down the sidewalk in front of his place with a hose so that ladies going
by would have to raise their skirts out of the wet.
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