The original host stayed away for
the rest of the evening, but the four new acquaintances seemed to get
along quite satisfactorily without him.
A young married woman from uptown came in with her husband and two
other men. A good-looking lad, much flushed and a little unsteady,
stopped by her chair.
"Say, k-kid," he exclaimed, with a disarming chuckle, "you're the
prettiest girl here--and you come here with three p-protectors! Say,
it's a shame!"
He lurched cheerfully upon his way and even the slightly conservative
husband found a grudging smile wrung out of him.
There is a pianist at the Black Cat--a real pianist, not just a person
who plays the piano. She is a striking figure in a quaint, tunic-like
dress, greying hair and a keen face, and a personal friend of half the
frequenters. She has an uncanny instinct for the psychology of the
moment. She knows just when "Columbia" will be the proper thing to
play, and when the crowd demands the newest rag-time. She will feel an
atmospheric change as unswervingly as any barometer, and switch in a
moment from "Good-bye Girls, Good-bye" to the love duet from Faust.
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