"Sure! Called up about an hour ago to say she'd found the swellest place—in Forty-first Street. But, say, Jasper, what do you think of a girl who gives up the room she's reserved for a month and more, just to—"
I broke in on this to ask where he'd had his lunch.
"Oh, the old girl made me go down and have it with her. She's not half a bad sort, when you come to know her. I've asked her to come out to dinner with me at Alfonso's. Lydia Blair says it's a dandy place—and now you can join the party."
"No; I've come to take you out."
"Say, Jasper! Do you think I'm always going to pass the buck, just because ... You and little Goldie are coming to dinner with me."
Not to dispute the point, I yielded it, asking only:
"What made you think I was coming this evening?—because, you know, I didn't mean to."
"Oh, I dunno. Like you to do it. You're the sort. That's all."
So within another half-hour I found myself at Alfonso's, on Drinkwater's left, with little Goldie opposite. Little Goldie seemed somehow the right name for the Statue of the Commander, now that she wore a lingerie hat and a blouse of the kind which I believe is called peek-a-boo. She was well known at Alfonso's, however, her authority securing us a table in a corner, with special attentions from head and subordinate waitresses.
How shall I tell you of Alfonso's? Like the rooming-house, it was for me a new social manifestation. It was what you might call the home of the homeless, and the homeless were numerous and noisy. They were very noisy, they were very hot. The odor of food struck upon the nostrils like the smell of a whole burnt sacrifice when they offered up an ox. The perfume of wine swam on top of that food, and over and above both the smell of a healthy, promiscuous, perspiring humanity, washed and unwashed, in a festive hurtling together, hilarious and hungry.