in the middle of her back, and she didn't
tell us that a large man with a ruby stick-pin had followed her
up all the way from Fourteenth Street. Was Kerner such a fool? I
wondered. And then I thought of the quantity of striped cuffs and
blue glass beads that $2,000,000 can buy for the heathen, and I said
to myself that he was. And then Elise--certainly that was her name--
told us, merrily, that the brown spot on her waist was caused by
her landlady knocking at the door while she (the girl--confound the
English language) was heating an iron over the gas jet, and she hid
the iron under the bedclothes until the coast was clear, and there
was the piece of chewing gum stuck to it when she began to iron the
waist, and--well, I wondered how in the world the chewing gum came to
be there--don't they ever stop chewing it?

A while after that--don't be impatient, the absinthe drip is coming
now--Kerner and I were dining at Farroni's. A mandolin and a guitar
were being attacked; the room was full of smoke in nice, long crinkly
layers just like the artists draw the steam from a plum pudding on
Christmas posters, and a lady in a blue silk and gasolined gauntlets
was beginning to hum an air from the Catskills.

"Kerner," said I, "you are a fool."

"Of course," said Kerner, "I wouldn't let her go on working. Not my
wife. What's the use to wait? She's willing. I sold that water color
of the Palisades yesterday. We could cook on a two-burner gas stove.
You know the ragouts I can throw together? Yes, I think we will marry
next week."

"Kerner," said I, "you are a fool."

"Have an absinthe drip?" said Kerner, grandly. "To-night you are the
guest of Art in paying quantities. I think we will get a flat with a
bath."

"I never tried one--I mean an absinthe drip," said I.

The waiter brought it and poured the water slowly over the ice in the
dripper.

"It looks exactly like the Mississippi River water in the big bend
below Natchez," said I, fascinated, gazing at the be-muddled drip.

"There are such flats for eight dollars a week," said Kerner.

"You are a fool," said I, and began to sip the filtration. "What you
need," I continued, "is the official attention of one Jesse Holmes."

Kerner, not being a Southerner, did not comprehend, so he sat,
sentimental, figuring on his flat in his sordid, artistic way, while
I gazed into the green eyes of the sophisticated Spirit of Wormwood.

Presently I noticed casually that a procession o