"Hand the leg over and I'll give you the ten dollars to get rid of you."
"All right, I'll give it to you, but don't you try to pull nothing funny or I'll take that thing away from you again, and beat the Hell out of you with it," said Mickey, as she handed him the leg.
"Thanks," said the man, as he took the leg, and reached down the top of it and pulled out a roll of bills, "Here's your ten," as he dug it out of a roll of fifties and hundreds.
"I'll be damned!" said Mickey, as they all left the room, "That's what I get for getting chicken-hearted, and giving it back to him. Every time I get sympathetic I lose money."
"Cheer up, Mickey—let's find the drinks," said Evelyn.
"Well, you ain't got far to look. They are right above us on the next floor," answered Mickey, as she made for the stairs.
"Well, nobody can't say it ain't starting off well—if we all don't end in the Mex jail, it will be a miracle of fate."
As they reached the third floor a sight greeted their eyes that would have made the old Roman gatherings look like child's play. There were couples everywhere in the hall, some fully dressed, some partially dressed, others practically nude, all oblivious of each other, while in the room there were less clothes but many more bodies, laying around on the floor, sprawled on chairs, on the bed, on the bathroom floor, while the bathtub was piled high with ice and bottles of every description; the connecting room to the bathroom had been opened, and an old phonograph was scratching the Mexican National Anthem, while a couple scantily clad, both male and female, in ladies' step-ins, insisted on doing their idea of the rhumba, which consisted mostly of the male part of the team goosing the female with the third finger of the hand, while she leaped, and screamed, with elephantine grace, much to the joy of the spectators, who were beginning to undress and join the dance, midst shouts and screams of gaiety.