ou can't tell me!"

"I dare say this leading woman needs a better vehicle," says the New
Yorker in a hoarse whisper.

"I dare say it, too," says Jeff Tuttle in a still hoarser whisper. "A
better vehicle! She needs a motor truck, and I'd order one quick if I
thought she'd take it."

Of course this was not refined of Jeff. The New Yorker winced and loyal
Ben glares at all of us that has been muttering, so we had to set there
till the curtain went down on the ruined home where all was lost save
honour--and looking like that would have to go, too, in the next act.
But Ben saw it wasn't safe to push us any further so he now said this
powerful play was too powerful for a bunch of low-brows like us and we
all rushed out into the open air. Everybody cheered up a lot when we got
there--seeing the nice orderly street traffic without a gripping moment
in it. Lon Price said it was too late to go to a theatre, so what could
we do to pass the time till morning? Ben says he has a grand idea and we
can carry it out fine with this New York man to guide us. His grand idea
is that we all go down on the Bowery and visit tough dives where the
foul creatures of the underworld consort and crime happens every minute
or two. We was still mad enough about that play to like the idea. A good
legitimate murder would of done wonders for our drooping spirits. So Ben
puts it up to the New Yorker and he says yes, he knows a vicious resort
on the Bowery, but we'd ought to have a detective from central office
along to protect us from assault. Ben says not at all--no
detective--unless the joints has toughened up a lot since he used to
infest 'em, and we all said we'd take a chance, so again we was in
taxicabs. Us four in the second cab was now highly cynical about Ben's
New Yorker. The general feeling was that sooner or later he would sink
the ship.

Then we reach the dive he has picked out; a very dismal dive with a room
back of the bar that had a few tables and a piano in it and a
sweet-singing waiter. He was singing a song about home and mother, that
in mem-o-ree he seemed to see, when we got to our table. A very gloomy
and respectable haunt of vice it was, indeed. There was about a dozen
male and female creatures of the underworld present sadly enjoying this
here ballad and scowling at us for talking when we come in.

Jake Berger ordered, though finding you couldn't get stingers here and
having to take two miner's inches of red whiskey, and the N