The others of the party, though, were absorbed in other, more immediate problems ... most of which stemmed from the dogged efforts of a bewildered usher to seat terrorized patrons in George's seat, which indeed appeared quite vacant. On these occasions the mouthings of the screen were rudely interrupted by startled cries of surprise and subsequent accusations that usually involved Marc who was occupying the next seat. One spinsterish female, thus offended, summoned the usher and accused the cowering man of inflicting upon her unlovely person brutalities which included pinchings, proddings and other familiarities too terrible to mention. In a whisper, George vehemently denied these charges to Marc, but the die had already been cast, the usher had already threatened to call the manager if they didn't remove themselves from the premises at once.
Flushed from its retreat like a covey of reluctant quail, the party made its way silently back to the cab which was waiting in a nearby taxi stand. No one spoke to George of his misdemeanors, lest they stir in his perverse soul a rebelliousness and a will to even more awful achievements. Besides, it didn't seem that mere reprimand could possibly be enough. Apparently the taxi driver was used to being thrown out of theatres, for he seemed to find nothing untoward in this latest ejection. He seemed to take the affair of the offensive seat in his stride, too.
It was hunger that next drove the strange foursome from the semi-private confines of the taxi, and again it seemed to Marc, in retrospect, that Toffee was the one to set the project afoot.
His face a study in calamity, Marc followed his curious companions into an obscure diner with the lusterless resignation of a man who no longer gives a damn. Fully aware that the venture hadn't a Chinaman's chance for turning out well, he only hoped it would not fall into complete ruination before he at least had a chance to fortify himself with a cup of coffee.
The affair of the diner, however, all things considered, really turned out better than expected. Marc managed to choke down not just one cup of coffee, but two, before disaster came storming over the horizon. It is perfectly true, of course, that George greedily and invisibly downed a milk shake while a counter boy, three waitresses and a handful of customers looked on with goggle-eyed fascination. Even the incurious taxi driver found this phenomenon somewhat diverting. He was not entirely certain in his own mind that long distance guzzling was a standard accomplishment in the bona-fide ventriloquist's bag of tricks. In the end, he decided it probably was and looked on Marc with new respect. But there were others who gazed on the driver's new-found hero not so much with respect as disgust. Marc, for his part, pretended not to notice.
The main event, so to speak, patiently bided its time until Marc had downed the second cup of coffee. Then, on the stroke of the last drop, it commenced promptly and devastatingly. It will never be known exactly what George did to the waitress to make her so hostile, but the record definitely shows that the young woman, just passing George's stool bearing a platter of ham and eggs, suddenly jerked to a halt, turned beet red, wheeled and bestowed her messy burden squarely in Marc's face. This she followed up with a few observations on the type and dexterity of Marc's hands, which were uttered in round phrases, no cooler, in any noticeable degree, than the sizzling platter now resting on Marc's lap.
Here, the situation reached the point at which it might have taken a course for either the better or worse, pending Marc's apology to the truculent waitress. But just as Marc opened his mouth, Toffee, smitten with the injustice of it all, gave the rail switches a deft twist and sent the whole issue into a sharp decline. Lifting her water glass, in which several large cubes of ice were still afloat, she calmly and deftly reached out and poured the entire contents into the startled waitress's accommodating bodice.
It is to be supposed that a dining room brawl, at best, is bound to be an untidy business. The one that followed was hardly an exception. The employees of the diner, all accomplished hash slingers by profession, exerted every effort to prove their professional standing in a horribly literal way. What the good people lacked in cool headed aim, they made up for in sustained volume. The members of the Pillsworth party, not too ambitious, anyway, to be the victors in this war on foodstuffs, were quickly beaten into a disordered retreat. Running swiftly down the sidewalk toward the waiting taxi, their last glimpse of the enemy only caused them to redouble their efforts to be elsewhere. The counter boy and the waitresses, joined by a managerial reinforcement who had miraculously arrived on the scene in the midst of hostilities, were lined up on the sidewalk like a bespattered operatic chorus. In unison, and with gusto, they were calling for the law and horrible revenge. One of the waitresses, distinguished from the others by a spasmodic addition to quivering disturbances about the upper torso, was loudly describing the abysmal blackness of Toffee's future should she ever be permitted to arrange it.
After the skirmish in the diner, there followed a long ride in the country which might have been restful except for the persistent singing of the driver, whose favorite selection continued exasperatingly to be "Mexicali Rose." Through it all, Marc tried to assemble his thoughts, a task rather like trying to assemble a house of cards in a derailed streetcar. However, he did come to several definite conclusions. Out of the shambles that was now his life, there were two things that surely had to be salvaged. Those were his love for his wife and hers for him. Having those two ingredients with which to work he might be able to rebuild from the beginning again, providing, of course, that he did not become a permanent resident of the state penitentiary because of George's misbegotten helpfulness. Another conclusion concerned Julie's debut as a Broadway star and her certain failure as same. If Julie was to go down in humiliation, he would be there to help cushion the fall, no matter what the consequences might turn out to be.