"Say, we only live once. I always tell ma she can't take it with her when she goes. Anyways, for the discount we got on those Adler sport skirts, we can afford to celebrate."
"Say, Herman, I wish I had a dime for every dollar that is spent up here to-night. Look at the women! I guess American men don't make queens out of their wives!"
"For every wife who's up here to-night I wouldn't take the trouble to collect the dimes," said Mr. Loeb, with cunning distinction.
"I guess that ain't all wrong, neither. It isn't such a pleasure to be away from your family New-Year's Eve, but I can assure you I'd rather have Etta having her celebration with ma and grandma, and maybe the Bambergers over at the house, than up here where even a married woman can blush to be."
"Take it from me, old man, a flannel petticoat in the family is worth all the ballet skirts on this roof put together."
"I bought ma and Etta each one of them handbags to-day at Lauer's for nine dollars. What they don't know about the price won't hurt them. Two for nine I'll tell them."
"To this day ma believes that five-hundred-dollar bar pin I brought her two years ago from Pittsburgh cost fifty at auction."
"There's Moe Marx from Kansas City just coming in! Spy the blonde he's with, will you? I guess Moe is used to that from home, nix! There's a firm, Marx-Jastrow, made a mint last year."
"Look!"
The lights had sunk down, the sea of faces receding into fog. The buzz died, too, and doors were swung against the steady shuffle of incomers. From behind the curtains a chime tonged roundly and in one key. One—two—three—four—five—six—seven—eight—nine—ten—eleven —twelve!