It was a Sabbath evening, and a sound of reedy pipes and bafalons, from a neighbouring café, filled with a feverish sadness the brilliantly lamp-lit street.
“De airs ob de nabehs, dat dair affair, what matter mo’, am de chillen’s schoolin’.”
“Prancing Nigger, I hope your Son an’ Daughters will yet take dair Degrees, an’ if not from de University, den from Home. From heah.”
“Hey-ho-day, an’ dat would be a miracle!” Mr. Mouth mirthlessly laughed.
“Dose chillens hab learnt quite a lot already.”
“’Bout de shaps an’ cynemas!”
Mrs. Mouth disdained a reply.
She had taken the girls to the gallery at the Opera one night to hear “Louise,” but they had come out, by tacit agreement, in the middle of it: the plainness of Louise’s blouse, and the lack of tunes ... added to which, the suffocation of the gallery.... And—once bit twice shy—they had not gone back again.
“All your fambly need, Prancing Nigger, is social opportunity! But what is de good ob de Babtist parson?”
Mr. Mouth sketched a gesture.