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and mixes itself illegitimate drinks, and downs them, and mixes more, and downs them . . . that it may forget how bored it is, that it may become merry and loud and hysterical . . . and a little disgusting . . .

Then it pounds the table and calls for music. And it dances, after its curious wobbly fashion, and pats its fat palms at the musicians. And after that it returns to its table, and perhaps kisses its partner for the edification of the next table, and orders a club sandwich that it doesn't want, and fishes under the chair for its bottle . . . and repeats itself and repeats itself . . . until at last the check girl helps it into the wrong coat, and the guardian of the parking space tells it to "watch out for the turn, sir, remember," and it goes wavering off to its home, wherever that is.

And if you take the roadhouse crowd apart to see what makes it tick, you come upon such curious cogs as these:

Lewd women dressed in white, like brides. Pudgy-legged women in the most abbreviated skirts of all. Girls with fresh young faces and eyes a million æons old. Drunken mothers. Bedizened grandmothers, whom you somehow know will pay their callow escorts' dinner checks. Lounging jointless boys with lifeless skin. Men with benign silver hair and Mephistophelian faces. Men with bald heads and loose, slippery mouths. Roues of twenty. Frail sisters of seventeen. Chorus girls and college boys. Boarding school girls and youths their parents have forbidden them to see. Glove-counter clerks and traveling salesmen. Young matrons enjoying an extra-nuptial thrill. Young benedicts enjoying an extra-nuptial thrill, Rouge turned purple under the lights. Thick red necks in wilting collars. Three-karat diamonds and dirty fingernails. Dandruff on dinner coats. Rolls of flabby flesh bulg-