Was there to be no respite from the steady flow? John suddenly remembered the candy, and reached for his overcoat.
"Oh," exclaimed Louise, as the white, pink-stringed box was brought forth. Sid stopped, obviously disconcerted. John unwrapped the dainties and threw the paper on the floor.
"Have some?" he asked as he lifted the cover.
The lady's lips closed over a chocolate-covered caramel. Sid's did likewise. John helped himself to a third and leaned back happily. At last a way of silencing his adversary had been found.
Silencing his adversary.
Conversation was temporarily impossible, so the trio gazed eagerly around them. Just ahead, sat a shop girl in a shabby best dress, with a head of blonde, mismatched hair, and beside her, her escort, an Irish mechanic, who shifted his head from time to time as the unaccustomed collar scraped his neck. Across the aisle was a family of towheaded Swedes, the father self-conscious in his carefully pressed black suit; the mother, watchful of her two mischievous, blue-eyed urchins. Young gallants of the neighborhood filled the boxes at either side of the auditorium, taking this, the most expensive, means of proving their devotion to their lady loves. In the rear of the theater were the first and second balconies, occupied by voluble men and women of all ages and nationalities. Ahead, hung the stage curtain, decorated with staring advertisements, "Lamson, the neighborhood undertaker," "Trade at the corner grocery. Vegetables always at the lowest market prices," "Snider's drug store, prescriptions, choice candies, and camera supplies," and the like. From somewhere in the heights came a sharp "rap-rap-rap," which echoed even to the more forward rows on the main floor.