“I want a drink,” he replied gruffly, in a low voice. Then he added after a pause with a sudden hoarse chuckle, “an’ anythin’ else that’s goin’.”
“Ye can’t get a drink here,” said Aunt Betty. “You better be going somewhere else. You’re wasting your time here, my good man.”
Aunt Betty spoke in a state of great excitement. This was habitual with her, owing to the terrific strain it caused her to try to effect the correct pronunciation of her words and “the educated accent of a woman of good family.” For she always tried to speak like a lady.
Gypo took no notice of her, or of the pimp who had again entered the room and now stood against the wall, with his terror-stricken eyes gleaming and his face livid with malice.
“Here,” he cried, “give everybody a drink. I’m callin’ a drink for the house.”
He thrust his hand into his pocket, pulled out the roll of notes and separated one, which he held out to Aunt Betty. It was like the performance of a miracle. Aunt Betty’s eyes sparkled. She advanced almost unconsciously, laughing with her thin, hard lips, while her eyes gleamed with avarice. Her fingers almost trembled as she took the note slowly. Feverishly, she examined it under the light. Gypo laughed as she did so and gave her a loud, hearty smack on the back, with horrid familiarity. She merely nudged him playfully in response. The note was genuine and had passed her scrutiny. She sighed and cracked her fingers towards the pimp.
“Glasses all round,” she said.
There was a little thrill of applause from the throats of the women as soon as they saw that his money was genuine. Some of those who were sitting alone, dressed for the street, got up and approached him, uttering laughing endearments. Even the women who were already engaged, sitting on the knees of the men, slightly tipsy, sobered up and became contemplative and sulkily jealous of those women who were free to capture Gypo and his wad of Treasury notes.
The men, on the other hand, now regarded him with hostility, jealous of the attraction he held for the women.
Only one person in the room took absolutely no notice of the whole proceedings. That was the woman in the fur coat, who sat in the corner to the right of the fire, reading the newspaper.
And Gypo, disregarding the soft, naked arms that attempted to embrace him and the amorous, sensuous faces, that were turned up to his on all sides and the soft, seductive, sibilant whispers that were uttered at him, kept his eyes towards the indifferent woman in the corner fixedly.
“Keep out of me way,” he muttered.
He pushed the girls away from him, strode over to the corner and stood beside the mysterious one. He stood over her, breathing heavily, looking down at her. She glanced at his knees from under her eyelids. Then she puffed at her cigarette, flicked something off her sleeve with her thumb and forefinger and went on reading her newspaper. The other women looked on silently with narrowed eyes. The men began to smile. Everybody was interested in what the fur-coated woman would do.
Gypo sat down beside her. He sat on the floor with his back to the wall.
“Aren’t ye hot wearin’ that fur coat?” he said.
She did not reply. There was a titter from the women.
“What’s all the news in the paper about?” continued Gypo.
The woman did not reply. One of the men burst into laughter, making a sound like an explosion, as if his mouth had been full of laughter a long time and it suddenly burst out.
“Horrid man! Go ’way,” said somebody else, mimicking the voice of a timid and refined woman.
Gypo’s face darkened and his throat veins swelled ominously. But just then the drinks arrived. He jumped to his feet and rushed over to the pimp who was carrying them. He drained one glass of whisky, then another, then another. An outcry arose.
“Hey, don’t drink the lot.”
“Savage.”
“What d’ye mean by callin’ a drink for us an’ then swallowin’ ’em all yoursel’?”
“Hey! Stop him, Johnny. Take the tray away from him.”
“You all go to the divil,” gasped Gypo. The whisky rushing down his throat had taken his breath away. “Wait there. There’s lots more.”
He pulled out another pound note and tossed it to Aunt Betty carelessly.
“There ye are,” he cried, “go an’ get more drinks.”
Then amid the delighted yells of the girls he drained three more glasses one after the other, each one at a gulp, while the women danced around him.
Suddenly the whole company went into a state of mad excitement. Human beings always respond in that way to the mysterious influence of a fresh and dominant personality, who, with a word, a gesture, a shout, turns a solemn and bored gathering into an almost Bacchanalian party. It seemed that all the people in the room had only awaited the arrival of Gypo to abandon themselves completely to an orgy of mad behaviour. Shouts, shrieks, smacking kisses, laughter, mingled chaotically in the warm air of the room. Each of the men vied with his neighbours in an exaggerated attempt to make a fool of himself. A young man with an innocent, red face and beautiful grey eyes, a student, stood up precariously in front of the fire, laughing incontinently and began to strip himself naked. Another man, a big fellow, seized a girl in his arms, tumbled with her to the floor and lay there shouting and trying to kiss her, while she struggled to free her loosened hair from beneath his shoulder. Gypo picked up two women and perched them one on each shoulder. Then he seized two others round the waist, raised them from the ground under his arms and began to jump into the air, yelling like a bull with each jump, while his fluttering, half-naked
