"'E's all ryght, is Paddy," said the voice from Houndsditch. He pointed a thumb that was a certificate of villainy in the direction of the stage.
"Sure," said the coloured lady, whose ancestry rambled back away Alabama. She looked up at the stage with her bold eyes.
"I know him," she said, thoughtfully. "And I like him," she added grinning. "We all like him. He's one of the boys."
"Wot price me?" said the Houndsditch man.
"Oh, you're good, too," said the coloured lady. "Blow in another cocktail, honey." She struck her breast where the uneasy bone showed through the dusky skin. "I've a fearful thirst right there."
Little puckers gathered about the small, humorous eyes of the Cockney as he looked at her. "My," he said, "you 'ave got a thirst and a capacity, Ole Sahara!"
The coloured lady raised the cocktail to her fat lips, and as she did so there was a sudden racket, men shouting, women clapping their hands, the voice of the tipsy woman dominant in its hysteria over the uproar. The singer was bowing profuse acknowledgments from the stage, his eyes, sly in their cynical humour, upon the face of the Slav at the piano, his head thrown back, the pallor of his face ghastly.
The lady from Alabama joined in the tribute to the singer.
"'Core, 'core," cried Ole Sahara, raising her glass in the dim vapour. "Here's to Denis Donohoe!"