everybody to witness his light-heartedness. Through the confused blur
of faces surrounding him he caught an occasional glimpse of the thin,
cruel lips and the shifting, beady eyes of his pursuer sitting over a
flat drink which he left untouched.

Presently somebody in the party suggested a round of the bohemian
joints. The motion was noisily seconded... Fred staggered to his feet.
They began with the uptown tenderloin, drifting in due time through
the Greek cafes on Third Street. Finally they crossed Market Street
and began to chatter into the tawdry dance halls of upper Kearny.
Everywhere the drinks flowed in covert streams, growing viler and more
nauseous as the pilgrimage advanced. Near Jackson Street they came
upon a bedraggled pavilion of dubious gayety which lured them
downstairs with its ear-splitting jazz orchestra. A horde of rapacious
females descended upon them like starving locusts. Suddenly everybody
in the party seemed moved with a desire for dancing--except Fred.
While the others whirled away he sank into a seat, staring vacantly
ahead. He had reached the extreme point of his drunkenness and he was
pulling toward sobriety again... He came out of his tentative stupor
with the realization that a woman was seating herself opposite him.

"What's your name?" he demanded, thickly.

"Ginger," she replied.

He took a sharper look. A pale, somewhat freckled face, topped by a
glory of fading red hair, thrust itself rather wistfully forward for
his inspection.

"Go 'way!" he waved, disconsolately. "Go 'way. I don't wanna dance!"

She smiled with the passive resistance of her kind. "Neither do I,"
she assented. "Let's just sit here and talk."

"Don't wanna talk!" he threw back, sullenly.

"All right," she agreed; "anything you say... Got a cigarette?"

He drew out a box and she selected one. The waiter hovered about
significantly. Fred ordered coffee ... Ginger took Whiterock. They
were silent. The music crashed and banged and whinnied, and the air
grew thick with the mingled odors of smoke and stale drinks and sex.

Finally Fred leaned forward and said in a whisper, "Tell me--has a
snaky-looking dub come into this joint?"

Ginger swept the room with her glance. "In a gray derby and a green
tie?"

"Yes."

"He's over in the corner--talking to a couple of fly cops."

He reached for a cigarette himself. His voice was becoming steadier.
"What do you think his game is?"

She pursed her lips. "Oh, I gu