"Drunk! Why, this man isn't drunk. It's monstrous. He has a weakened spine, that's all."
"I'm drunk," Hugo repeated. He knew then what it was to be drunk. The toastmaster was rising again. Hugo saw it dimly.
"Fellows!" A fork banged on a glass. "Fellows!" There was a slow increase in silence. "Fellows! It's eleven o'clock now. And I have a surprise for you."
"Surprise! Hey, guys, shut up for the surprise!"
"Fellows! What I was going to say is this: the girls from the show we saw this afternoon are coming over here—all thirty of 'em. We're going up to my house for a real party. And the lid'll be off. Anything goes—only anybody that fights gets thrown out straight off without an argument. Are you on?"
The announcement was greeted by a stunned quiet which grew into a bellow of approval. Plates and glasses were thrown on the floor. Lefty leaped on to the table and performed a dance. The proprietor came in, looked, and left hastily, and then the girls arrived.
They came through the door, after a moment of reluctant hesitation, like a flood of brightly colored water. They sat down in the laps of the boys, on chairs, on the edge of the disarrayed tables. They were served with innumerable drinks as rapidly as the liquor could be brought. They were working, that night, for the ten dollars promised to each one. But they were working with college boys, which was a rest from the stream of affluent and paunchy males who made their usual escort. Their gaiety was better than assumed.
Hugo had never seen such a party or dreamed of one. His vision was cleared instantly of its cobwebs. He saw three boys seize one girl and turn her heels over head. A piano was moved in. She jumped up and started dancing on the table. Then there was a voice at his side.
"Hello, good-looking. I could use that drink if you can spare it."
Hugo looked at the girl. She had brown hair that had been curled. Her lips and cheeks were heavily rouged and the corners of her mouth turned down in a sort of petulance or fatigue. But she was pretty. And her body, showing whitely above her evening dress, was creamy and warm. He gave the drink to her. She sat in his lap.