“That so”? Well, she was a peach all right. As we took our places she kicked my foot under the table. She begged my pardon, and I said: ‘Oh, go as far as you like!’ It sort of broke the ice. She said she was dying to smoke; but she didn’t know how the other women would take it. I said: ‘Oh, go ahead. When they see you start they’ll all smoke themselves black in the face!’ Across the table sat:” he named names that took Wilfred’s breath away. “Some party! . . . I came home afterwards, and carried down the washing from the roof for my mother.”
By degrees Wilfred had perceived that Binks’ affections were not warm like Stanny’s and Jasper’s. With sharpest pain he thought: The fellows he met last night for the first time are just the same to him as us. . . . Oh well, that’s his nature. You have to take him as he is. When Binks got drunk, and, no longer clever, made believe that the studio was a skating rink, Wilfred felt like a father to him. At any rate I can carry my liquor better than Binks, he told himself.
After supper there came a point when Jasper burst into flower like that night-blooming plant whose name Wilfred couldn’t remember. He stood behind a chair, haranguing them in the manner of a rabbit-toothed curate with his spectacles slipping off his nose. A rag-tag parody of biblical quotations, and pulpit jargon. The congregation rolled helplessly on the floor. At such moments, Wilfred thought, Jasper under his unsure manner revealed richer ore than any of them.
The supply of Nebiola had given out; and they went cascading down the four flights of stairs for a fresh supply. They found Maria’s restaurant empty; and in the back room Binks banged on the piano while the others danced. Oh! the combination of Hilgy’s grave, sad head and skittish legs. Hilgy never laughed; he only caused the others to. It seemed to Wilfred that as his friends became wilder, he grew ever more sober. But as they stopped to read a sign in the street, an enormous laugh was suddenly directed against him when it was discovered that he was holding one eye shut. I must have been drunk, too; thought Wilfred, surprised.
The rest was merely noise and wild laughter. Pictures leaped out of the dark. The foolish Fred, dressed up like d’Artagnan and posed upon the model stand for Stanny to sketch—he had no idea he was being joshed; Stanny’s expression of indignant wistfulness when he tried to rise from the floor, and discovered that he was sitting in the glue which somebody had overturned. Oh, how good it was to laugh! It washed you out! Oh, Nebiola, and the pink foam in the glasses! How these expansive rackety nights drew fellows together! After two such nights on end, Wilfred felt that he had a real hold upon them.
The next day was Sunday. They met at noon in a cheap restaurant on Fourteenth street. There was renewed laughter at the sight of Jasper’s morose expression as he pushed a piece of dry toast around his plate with a fork. Fred was pitiful; all the Lockport doggy air had gone out of him. It transpired that Jasper had invited Hilgy (who lived up-town) to spend the night with him and his brother, and the bed had collapsed under the triple load. There had been a high old row. The widow with whom Jasper lodged had fired them on the spot; and it was only after much persuasion that she had relented to the extent of letting them stay out the night.
“She had a mash on Jasper,” said Hilgy, “and what really made her sore was him seeing her in her nighty and curlpapers. She realized that she could no longer hope.”
The situation was awkward since practically all their money had been spent in Fred’s entertainment. However Stanny had said they could share his studio until they scraped together enough to pay an advance on another room.
The moving was the occasion of the second party. It was more restrained than the first owing to a certain shortage of supplies, still . . . ! At midnight between two showers they had issued out to conduct the hegira. Returning, what a circus! A treat for the occasional passer-by. Hilgy first with rolls and rolls of tracing paper under one arm; and in the other hand the front end of Jasper’s trunk. Jasper next with the hinder end of the trunk in one hand; and in the other the front end of a folding cot. Binks had the stern end of the cot in one hand; and an end of a drawing-table in the other; Wilfred the other end of the drawing-table and one handle of a Gladstone bag; Stanny the remaining handle of the bag, and more rolls of drawings and tracings. Fred brought up the rear, walking alone, with a suit-case in each hand, and more rolls caught under his arms.
Thus they made their way up the midnight Avenue, like one of those wooden-jointed snakes that were sold on Fourteenth street. Whenever anybody stopped to stare at them, the grave Hilgy capered like a goat. In the middle of the street, Jasper’s suit-case (carried by Fred) burst with a loud report, flinging soiled under-clothing, broken shoes and lead pencils far and wide. Fred, dropping the suit-case, fled up the street, and made out he wasn’t with them. The others as well as they could for laughing, gathered up the debris. Hilgy held up a torn union suit in an attitude of pensive regard. Oh, Gee!