Admiringly Harry Tugman’s face turned to the slumped burly figure of Hugh McGuire.
“By God!” he boasted, “I bet he does the damnedest piece of operating you ever heard of.”
“Why, hell,” said the counterman loyally, “he ain’t worth a damn until he’s got a quart of corn licker under his belt. Give him a few drinks and he’ll cut off your damned head and put it on again without your knowing it.”
As Jeff Spaugh roared off Harry Tugman said jealously: “Look at that bastard. Mr. Vanderbilt. He thinks he’s hell, don’t he? A big pile of bull. Ben, do you reckon he was really out at the Hilliards tonight?”
“Oh for God’s sake,” said Ben irritably, “how the hell should I know! What difference does it make?” he added furiously.
“I guess Little Maudie will fill up the column tomorrow with some of her crap,” said Harry Tugman. “ ‘The Younger Set,’ she calls it! Christ! It goes all the way from every little bitch old enough to wear drawers, to Old Man Redmond. If Saul Gudger belongs to the Younger Set, Ben, you and I are still in the third grade. Why, hell, yes,” he said with an air of conviction to the grinning counterman, “he was bald as a pig’s knuckle when the Spanish American War broke out.”
The counterman laughed.
Foaming with brilliant slapdash improvisation Harry Tugman declaimed:
“Members of the Younger Set were charmingly entertained last night at a dinner dance given at Snotwood, the beautiful residence of Mr. and Mrs. Clarence Firkins, in honor of their youngest daughter, Gladys, who made her debut this season. Mr. and Mrs. Firkins, accompanied by their daughter, greeted each of the arriving guests at the threshold in a manner reviving the finest old traditions of Southern aristocracy, while Mrs. Firkins’ accomplished sister, Miss Catherine Hipkiss, affectionately known to members of the local younger set as Roaring Kate, supervised the checking of overcoats, evening wraps, jockstraps, and jewelry.
“Dinner was served promptly at eight o’clock, followed by coffee and Pluto Water at eight forty-five. A delicious nine-course collation had been prepared by Artaxerxes Papadopolos, the well-known confectioner and caterer, and proprietor of the Bijou Café for Ladies and Gents.
“After first-aid and a thorough medical examination by Dr. Jefferson Reginald Alfonso Spaugh, the popular gin-ecologist, the guests adjourned to the Ball Room where dance music was provided by Zeke Buckner’s Upper Hominy Stringed Quartette, Mr. Buckner himself officiating at the trap drum and tambourine.
“Among those dancing were the Misses Aline Titsworth, Lena Ginster, Ophelia Legg, Gladys Firkins, Beatrice Slutsky, Mary Whitesides, Helen Shockett, and Lofta Barnes.
“Also the Messrs. I. C. Bottom, U. B. Freely, R. U. Reddy, O. I. Lovett, Cummings Strong, Sansom Horney, Preston Updyke, Dows Wicket, Pettigrew Biggs, Otis Goode, and J. Broad Stern.”
Ben laughed noiselessly, and bent his pointed face into the mug again. Then, he stretched his thin arms out, extending his body sensually upward, and forcing out in a wide yawn the nighttime accumulation of weariness, boredom, and disgust.
“Oh‑h‑h‑h my God!”
Virginal sunlight crept into the street in young moteless shafts. At this moment Gant awoke.
He lay quietly on his back for a moment in the pleasant yellow-shaded dusk of the sitting-room, listening to the rippling flutiness of the live piping birdy morning. He yawned cavernously and thrust his right hand scratching into the dense hairthicket of his breast.
The fast cackle-cluck of sensual hens. Come and rob us. All through the night for you, master. Rich protesting yielding voices of Jewesses. Do it, don’t it. Break an egg in them.
Sleepless, straight, alert, the counterpane moulded over his gaunt legs, he listened to the protesting invitations of the hens.
From the warm dust, shaking their fat feathered bodies, protesting but satisfied they staggered up. For me. The earth too and the vine. The moist new earth cleaving like cut pork from the plough. Or like water from a ship. The spongy sod spaded cleanly and rolled back like flesh. Or the earth loosened and hoed gently around the roots of the cherry trees. The earth receives my seed. For me the great lettuces. Spongy and full of sap now like a woman. The thick grapevine—in August the heavy clustered grapes—How there? Like milk from a breast. Or blood through a vein. Fattens and plumps them.
All through the night the blossoms dropping. Soon now the White Wax. Green apples end of May. Isaacs’ June Apple hangs half on my side. Bacon and fried green apples.
With sharp whetted hunger he thought of breakfast. He threw the sheet back cleanly, swung in an orbit to a sitting position and put his white somewhat phthisic feet on the floor. Standing up tenderly, he walked over to his leather rocker and put on a pair of clean white-footed socks. Then he pulled his nightgown over his head, looking for a moment in the dresser mirror at his great boned structure, the long stringy muscles of his arms, and his flat-meated hairy chest. His stomach sagged paunchily. He thrust his white flaccid calves quickly through the shrunken legs of a union suit, stretched it out elasticly with a comfortable widening of his shoulders and buttoned it. Then he stepped into his roomy sculpturally heavy trousers and drew on his soft-leathered laceless shoes. Crossing his suspender braces over his shoulders, he strode into the kitchen and had a brisk fire of oil and pine snapping in the range within three minutes. He was stimulated and alive in all the fresh wakefulness of the Spring morning.
Through Birdseye Gap, in the dewy richness of Lunn’s Cove, Judge Webster Tayloe, the eminent, prosperous, and aristocratic corporation counsel (retired, but occasional consultations), rose in the rich walnut twilight of his bedchamber, noted approvingly, through the black lenses of
