hose
you see dining in second-rate restaurants, their paper propped up
against the bowl of oyster crackers, munching solemnly and with
indifference to the stare of the passer-by surveying them through the
brazen plate-glass window.

And then came the war. The war that spelled death and destruction to
millions. The war that brought a fortune to Jo Hertz, and transformed
him, overnight, from a baggy-kneed old bachelor whose business was a
failure to a prosperous manufacturer whose only trouble was the
shortage in hides for the making of his product. Leather! The armies
of Europe called for it. Harnesses! More harnesses! Straps! Millions
of straps. More! More!

The musty old harness business over on Lake Street was magically
changed from a dust-covered, dead-alive concern to an orderly hive that
hummed and glittered with success. Orders poured in. Jo Hertz had
inside information on the war. He knew about troops and horses. He
talked with French and English and Italian buyers commissioned by their
countries to get American-made supplies. And now, when he said to Ben
or George, "Take, f'rinstance, your raw hides and leathers," they
listened with respectful attention.

And then began the gay-dog business in the life of Jo Hertz. He
developed into a Loop-hound, ever keen on the scent of fresh pleasure.
That side of Jo Hertz which had been repressed and crushed and ignored
began to bloom, unhealthily. At first he spent money on his rather
contemptuous nieces. He sent them gorgeous furs, and watch bracelets,
and bags. He took two expensive rooms at a downtown hotel, and there
was something more tear-compelling than grotesque about the way he
gloated over the luxury of a separate ice-water tap in the bathroom.
He explained it.

"Just turn it on. Any hour of the day or night. Ice water!"

He bought a car. Naturally. A glittering affair; in color a bright
blue, with pale-blue leather straps and a great deal of gold fittings,
and special tires. Eva said it was the kind of thing a chorus girl
would use, rather than an elderly businessman. You saw him driving
about in it, red-faced and rather awkward at the wheel. You saw him,
too, in the Pompeian Room at the Congress Hotel of a Saturday afternoon
when roving-eyed matrons in mink coats are wont to congregate to sip
pale-amber drinks. Actors grew to recognize the semibald head and the
shining, round, good-natured face looming out at them from the dim well
of