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Page 56
As for P. Sybarite, he watched the vehicle swing away and round the
corner of Seventh Avenue, a doubtful glimmer in eyes that had burned
hot with hostility, a slight ironic smile wreathing lips that had
shown hatred.
"But what's the good of that?" he said in self-disgust, as the taxicab
disappeared.
With a sigh, shaking himself together, he went into Dutch House.
XIV
WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD
From street door to restaurant entrance, the hallway of Dutch House
was some twenty-five feet long, floored with grimy linoleum in
imitation of tiling, greasy as to its walls and ceiling, and boasting
an atmosphere rank with a reek compounded of a dozen elements, in
their number alcohol, cheap perfumery, cooked meats, the sweat of
unclean humanity, and stale tobacco smoke.
Save for this unsavoury composite wraith, the hall was empty when P.
Sybarite entered it. But it echoed with sounds of rowdy revelry from
the room in back: mechanical clatter of galled and spavined piano,
despondent growling of a broken-winded 'cello, nervous giggling and
moaning of an excoriated violin--the three wringing from the score of
_O You Beautiful Doll_ an entirely adequate accompaniment to the
perfunctory performance of a husky contralto.
Though by no means squeamish, on the testimony of his nose and ears P.
Sybarite then and there concluded that he would have to have become
exceedingly blas� indeed to find Dutch House amusing.
And when he had gone on into the restaurant itself, slipping his
modest person inconspicuously into a chair at the nearest unoccupied
table, the testimony of his other senses as to the character of his
company served to confirm this impression.
"It's no use," he sighed: "I'm too old a dog.... Be it ever so
typical, there's _no_ place like one's own hash-foundry." ...
This room was broad and deep, and boasted, at its far end, a miniature
stage supporting the orchestra and, temporarily, the gyrations of a
lady in a vivacious scarlet costume--mistress of the shopworn
contralto--who was "vamping with the feet" the interval between two
verses of her ballad.
The main floor was strewn with tables round which sat a motley
gathering of gangsters, fools, pretty iniquities and others by no
stretch of the imagination to be termed pretty, confidence men,
gambling touts, and the sprinkling of drunkards--plain, common,
transient, periodical, suburban, habitual, and unconscious--for and by
whom the place was, and is, maintained. In and out among these
circulated several able-bodied waiters with soiled shirt-bosoms, iron
jaws and, not infrequently, cauliflower ears.
Spying out P. Sybarite, one of these bore down upon him with an air of
the most flattering camaraderie.
It was true that the little man, in a dark coat and hat alike too
large for him, with his shabby shoes and trousers and apologetic
demeanour, promised no very profitable plucking; but the rule of Dutch
House is to neglect none, however lowly.
"Well, bo'," grunted the waiter cheerfully, polishing off the top of
the table with a saturated towel, "yuh don't come round's often as y'
uster."
"That's a fact," P. Sybarite agreed. "I've been a long time
away--haven't I?"
"Yuh said somethin' _then_. Mus' be months sinst I seen yuh last.
What's the trouble? Y' ain't soured on the old joint, huh?"
"No," P. Sybarite apologised. "I've been--away. Where's Red?"
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