I had looked forward to this here expedition
for thirty years, like a guy looks forward to eight o'clock the night
he's gonna call on his first girl. We had learned French and Eytalian
off of a phonograph record and from givin' them spaghetti dives a play.
Also, I had collected a trousseau that would of made John Drew take
arsenic if he'd ever of flashed me when I was dolled up for the street.

Prob'ly you have seen somethin' in the papers about how the old country
was closed to traffic right then. From what I hear it was all dug up
like lower Broadway and tourists had to detour by way of So. America,
so we never got nearer Europe than the Williamsburg Bridge, and you
can't see a thing from there.

Well, when we found out that as far as trips to Europe was concerned
they was nothin' stirrin', the wife took both bank books and went down
to Lakewood, while I stayed in New York as a deposit on the new flat.
I went to the station with her and I'll betcha from the fond farewells
we give each other, people must of thought she was gonna take the veil
or somethin', instead of just goin' to entomb herself in Jersey for a
month. I swore I'd be in every night at ten, although that's kinda
late to start out for the night, and she promised not to get in no
bridge melees where the sum they battled for was over six bits. Then
we took some more bows on the lovin' good-by stuff, and I'm alone in
the big city.

I managed somehow to live through the day, but the next afternoon I
lured a bunch up to the flat for a little pinochle. I begin by
invitin' two guys, but by the time we got to Harlem we was a dozen
strong. Once inside the portals, it turns out that only six of them is
wild about pinochle, so the rest of 'em take up the rugs, start the
victrola and give themselves up to dancin'. Pretty soon the telephone
rings with great violence. I grabbed the receiver and learned it was
the woman which lives underneath.

"Them steamfitters you got rehearsin' up there has got to call it a
day!" she says. "Otherwise I'll moan to the landlord. The chandelier
has left the ceilin' already and four pieces of my chocolate set is
busted. I never heard tell of such carryin' on!"

"Wait till you been here a little longer," I says, "I ain't carryin'
on, me and some boy friends of mine is tryin' to kill a dull afternoon
and--"

"If them's friends makin' that racket," she butts in, "I hope I have
moved when your enemies call! What am I gon