“It’s terrible,” said the lady in the tiara addressing herself to a man with a long face the color of tobacco who sat at the
end of the table ... “It’s terrible, Colonel, the way Gilly gets blasphemous when he’s been drinking...”
The Colonel was meticulously rolling the tinfoil off a cigar. “Dear me, you dont say?” he drawled. Above the bristly gray mustache his face was expressionless. “There’s a most dreadful story about poor old Atkins, Elliott Atkins who used to be with Mansfield...”
“Indeed?” said the Colonel icily as he slit the end of the cigar with a small pearlhandled penknife.
“Say Chester did you hear that Mabie Evans was making a hit?”
“Honestly Olga I dont see how she does it. She has no figure...”
“Well he made a speech, drunk as a lord you understand, one night when they were barnstorming in Kansas...”
“She cant sing...”
“The poor fellow never did go very strong in the bright lights...”
“She hasnt the slightest particle of figure...”